Good news, everyone! I've decided to make the chapters a bit longer, in order to streamline my writing. This fic's gonna get pretty long otherwise. Enjoy!

Chapter Seven: Revelation

Chrissy Kwan was waiting outside, as usual, for her friends to arrive the following day. This particular afternoon, however, she sensed something was amiss. Jake and Ellie were behaving as though they had the weight of the world on their shoulders: tired and apathetic towards life. In fact, they looked paler ever since that narrow encounter yesterday at Fentonworks.

That was probably it. They'd become nervous after all that. Their grandfather had been hit across the head, after all.

The bell sounded, and Chrissy got up from the school's front steps, watching out for the signature red vest and violet sweater that belonged to Jake and Ellie. Instead, what she saw rushing towards her was a gray t-shirt that always meant trouble for anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot of its owner.

"Kwan!" Tyler shouted at the fair-haired girl.

Chrissy groaned. She'd been spotted. Now, the only thing to do was to end the conversation as quickly as possible. "Ty, before you say anything–"

"Your article on counter-GW was due yesterday, Kwan!" Ty rumbled. "Either get it in tomorrow, or all our grades will suffer!"

Tyler Shaw was another student in Chrissy's News Media class, appointed editor of the news-site. He was also known to say that he led a life without apology; this tended to mean both that he never regretted any decision he made, and he never apologized to anyone. He didn't think he needed to.

Chrissy made another attempt to disengage. "Ty, I'm late for..." She struggled to make up a fictitious appointment.

"However," Ty continued, "that's not why I'm here. Where're those two Fenton kids you hang out with?"

Chrissy just frowned. With Ty, less was always better to say than more. However, this proved to no avail, as the news hound's head shot to one side, spotting the two kids like a trained foxhound.

"Ellie! Jake!" he shouted as he rushed towards them. His erratic gesturing made sure that his body was in perpetual motion. "I heard we just had us another accident at FW! That makes–what? Eight in just under a month?"

It was obvious that the twins wanted nothing to do with Ty. "Back off!" Ellie shouted, pushing him away. She stomped past him, Jake following with his head lowered. He nodded to Chrissy as he passed, taking out the strips of metal that formed the hover-scooters.

"What side of who's bed did they wake up on?" asked a voice from behind Chrissy. She turned in surprise to find Dave, a confused expression on his face.

"I don't know," Chrissy sighed. "I think it's their grandpa. He was hit pretty bad yesterday."

"That can't be it," replied Dave. "He was fine, remember? Up in the med ward, he was already rushing back down to salvage the Voyagers; those aren't typical concussion symptoms. It's something else. Something bad."

Chrissy got her hover-scooter out, saying, "We'll ask them once we get to Baxter's. Better hurry; Hurricane Ty's on the rampage again."

The pieces of metal unfolded into the hovering scooters, and the four took off, leaving the annoying news-buff behind on the quad.

The good seats were fortunately available that day at Baxter's. Student turnout today was at a low, as it usually was on Fridays. Another factor was the relatively close date of Thanksgiving; people had dinners to prepare and relatives to invite in a couple of days. Jake and Ellie, however, always had Chrissy and Dave over to their house for the holidays, so there was no need to help.

After each person ordered their usual coffees, Chrissy was the first to speak.

"So..." she started, trying to approach this in the best way possible, "...how'd that report turn out, Ellie?"

"Fine," Ellie replied bluntly. "Just fine."

The blonde-haired girl frowned, asking, "Ellie, what's wrong?"

"Nothing!" she blurted in reply. "Nothing's wrong!"

Chrissy was wide-eyed. "Then why have you two been acting so weird?"

A pause.

"Look," Jake said. "Something's going on that we'd rather not talk about. Okay?"

"Jake, we talk about everything, don't we?" Dave asked. "Remember when your great-grandma died and you didn't come out of your house for a week? When you talked to us about it, you got over it. Remember?"

The male Fenton twin disliked this memory above most others. The passing of Grandma Ida was probably the saddest memory Jake could remember. It was unbearable for his mother, as well; she'd idolized her grandmother, who was the only member of her family who advocated her individuality. Without her, Sam and Jake slipped into utter despair, holing up in their respective rooms for such a long time that their friends were the only people who could bring them out of it.

Unfortunately for Jake, the revival of this memory set off his intangibility by accident. The Styrofoam coffee cup he'd been holding phased through his fingers, spilling its scalding hot contents directly onto his lap. Yelping from the hot liquid, he used up all the napkins in the table side dispenser drying himself off.

"Sorry!" Dave said. "I didn't mean to–"

"I-It's alright," Jake replied. "Actually, there has been a problem."

"What?" Chrissy asked.

Jake was about to reply when Ellie started tugging on his sleeve.

"Jake; may I speak to you for a moment? Now?"

Ellie got up, motioning for her brother to follow her to an unoccupied booth. When they were out of earshot, they spoke in hushed voices.

"Are you out of your mind?" Ellie whispered urgently.

"Ellie," replied Jake, "they're our friends. They deserve to know."

"They won't be our friends for long if you say anything! Once they find out we have some sort of disease or whatnot, they'll never see us again!"

"Ellie, I don't think this is a disease."

A beat.

"What?" Ellie asked, still hushed.

"I looked at the blood sample again this morning," he continued, "while I was in the chem lab. That green stuff in our cells; that's ectoplasm. It doesn't seem to have any viral quality to it. In fact, it's bonded with our very DNA. These so-called symptoms are actually powers! We have ghost powers!"

This struck Ellie with the force of a cannonball. "Ghost powers? How could we have ghost powers?"

"That, I'm still working on. But that's not my point. Ellie, I think we can control these abilities! Try concentrating on your hand. Try making it intangible. I want to see if it'll work."

Ellie raised her hand to eye level, taking care to shield it from her friends' view. She concentrated on it, thinking Phase! Phase! Phase!

As though made of mist, her hand became hazy and translucent. She passed it through the steel table, justifying its incorporeality. A small smile passed her lips.

"Ghost powers..." she murmured. "You try!"

Jake followed suit, his hand becoming insubstantial upon his concentration. He smiled, matching his sister. "Now what do you think we should do?"

Ellie thought a moment before saying, "We'll tell them. But we have to keep this secret; if anyone knew, we'd probably be strapped to a government operating table within the week."

"Agreed."

The Fenton mansion was abounding with activity. Every member of the hired help was shuttling food, drink, and decorations to and fro between the labyrinthine rooms. It was hard for Jake and Ellie to find an empty place were they wouldn't be heard. Finally, they came to the lab, the one place that was never decorated, and closed themselves off from the rest of the house.

"Alright," Dave said impatiently. "You guys had better have a good reason for dragging us here! We'll be late getting home!"

"Trust me," replied Ellie, "you'll want to see this."

She took the slide with the blood sample out of a drawer, putting it onto the stage of a microscope. Ellie then told Dave to look at the slide and tell her what he saw.

"What are those little green things?" he asked, peering into the eyepiece.

Jake said, "It's ectoplasm."

Dave brought his head up, staring at the boy as though he'd touched down from Mars. "The stuff ghosts are made of? What's it doing here? Whose blood is this?"

"Ours."

Jake concentrated with the utmost force, trying to make his body intangible. Instead, twin halos of light shot across his body, transforming his clothes into the jumpsuit he'd worn yesterday. The only difference was that the colors had been inverted. Ellie stared at him for a moment; her brother bore a frightening resemblance to the creature she'd seen in her dream last night.

Chrissy touched Jake's shoulder as the boy looked at his attire; when she brought it away, a sort of vapor the same color as the suit gravitated towards her hand away form his body. It was as though he were made of dry ice.

Ellie decided to try this out as well. Concentrating hard, her clothes disappeared in a sweep of white light, becoming a hazmat suit similar to Jake's, but with inverse colors to his. Dave looked at her with a combination of awe and admiration.

"Cool..." murmured Chrissy. Her voice was barely a whisper. "But...how'd this happen?"

"We don't know," Jake said. "But we might need your help with controlling these abilities. I haven't been able to hold anything breakable without dropping it, today."

Dave struggled to find words. Finally, he said, "We'll do what we can."

"Oh, and this is just between us," Ellie said sternly. "Promise you won't tell anyone. Alright?"

"Fine, we promise; don't we, Dave?" asked Chrissy.

"Okay. It's our secret. We'll work it all out this weekend. Now we'd better get going."

The four left the lab, dodging servants left and right to get to the door. As the Fenton twins said goodbye to their friends, they never noticed a floating light of green hovering from just under the chandelier...

I hope you like this! I also hope you take the time to tell me your thoughts! I thank you all!

Regards,

Caracal.