Chapter Sixteen: Back to School
Man, I love this coat, Ellie thought as she walked down the halls of Casper High on the fifth day of January.
The very rare and expensive topcoat she wore over her shoulders was made from space-age fibers more resistant to wear than any before them. It was frilled with lavender fleece, which perfectly accented its violet color. These facts alone would make it expensive, but the added feature of being able to change hues in different lighting pushed its price into the hundreds of thousands.
Luckily, a multi-billionaire and friend of Ellie's had gotten it for her. Uncle Vlad had revealed a couple of weeks ago that he'd set up a branch of Dalv Corp in Amity Park. Therefore, he'd be able to visit the Fentons more often now. This coat had been his Christmas present to Ellie, who had accepted it with a 'thank you,' and the biggest hug she'd ever given anyone in her life.
Ellie walked to her locker, the coat changing colors from violet to green in the shade of a nearby door. Putting the coat away, she turned to face Chrissy, whose locker was right beside her own.
"You really like that thing, don't you?" Chrissy asked.
"Yeah!" Ellie answered. "Vlad said it's made from some kind of fiber that reflects blacklight. Gives a chameleon effect."
Dave came up from the hall, books under his shoulder. "You women and clothes," he said dryly.
They made it to History only seconds before the bell rang. Mr. Gardner looked at the students of his class through his rimless blue spectacles. He had a massive, aquiline nose, buck teeth, and hair so wiry that one could scrape two inches of hardened grease off a pan with it. Worse still, his voice was drab to the level where it acted like a sleeping pill.
"Where'd Vlad get that coat?" Jake asked, ignoring the droning voice of Mr. Gardner.
"Somewhere in Italy," Ellie replied. "He said that the fibers in it come from a tree found only in the jungles of Tanzania. It cost him thousands!"
"Mr. and Mrs. Fenton!" Gardner said sternly. "I suppose you find your little discussion more interesting than world history?"
No answer came. Jake and Ellie merely stared politely.
"You know," Gardner continued, "I would expect this kind of behavior from iyou/i, Ellie; but I'm very disappointed in you, Jake. I'm afraid you two have detention after school. No excuses."
"But–" Jake started.
"No excuses." Gardner repeated evenly.
As the class continued, Jake and Ellie lowered their heads, hoping that they could somehow become invisible without someone discovering their secret.
There is an abandoned warehouse facility directly adjacent to Casper High. Its glory days long gone, it was abandoned five years ago, left standing for a demolition that never came. Now, it juts into the stratosphere along with the other skyscrapers, like a stake driven into the heart of Amity Park.
Inside this building, in a filing suppository on the 38th floor, there were ghosts. Many were here at the moment, but only one is worth mentioning as he stalks along the hallways on talon-like magnapeds. He is a walking suit of battle armor, coal black with the immense heat needed to perfect its ecto-resin. Upon his gorilla-like head, there is a ghastly halo of green flame. His arms reach long, and are bulky with strength. Crystal circutry and kevlar plates make up what is not covered by ecto-steel.
Within this monster is the mind and body of the greatest hunter the Ghost Zone has ever known.
Skulker walked over to the window of the room, talons clinking upon the concrete floor. Raising his arm, a pair of macro-binoculars emerging on a thin robotic arm leveled with his green lenses. Through the binoculars, he could see the ghost children: Ellen and Jacob Fenton, the spawn of his long-contesting prey.
"Hmm..." he rasped, lowering the sight-enhancing device. "A new pair of half-ghosts. Not exactly one of a kind anymore, but they'll make a fine addition nonetheless."
A ring tone of the William Tell Overture emanated from a console on his wrist.
"Skulker?" a man's voice asked.
"Yes, Sir?" the hunter replied.
"Is our agent in position?"
"He is."
"And are the alarms nullified?"
"They were the last time, they are now."
"Good. After all we went through finding him, I expect some results."
"Don't worry. He will be more than a match for these two halfas."
"It doesn't matter. He's merely an instrument. Nothing more."
"If I may trouble you with boldness, sir," Skulker said, "why not keep both?"
"The boy is a threat. The girl is weak in her mind; vulnerable. She'll be easier to convince. She will join us by choice. Afterwards, you and Technus can have the boy."
"I look forward to it..." Skulker growled, raising the binoculars again.
Chrissy groaned as she looked at the clock. 3:47 P.M. Another thirteen minutes until detention let out.
As she ran a brush through her long hair, Chrissy thought about what she'd done to deserve this. Her and Dave's little experiment with sodium had resulted in a chemical fire that had spread throughout half the lab. The boy in question was sitting at her right, drumming his fingers, while Jake and Ellie rested their heads at the front of the class.
She looked at the clock again. 3:50. Time literally seemed to slow down.
In the meantime, Chrissy had begun on her history homework. They had been going over the Ghost Wars, which had happened only twenty years ago, and they had been assigned to make timelines. She looked at hers:
First Attacks:
Alexandria, Egypt: Skulker
Venice, Italy: Penelope Spectra
Mexico City, Mexico: Bullet
Tokyo, Japan: Nicolai Technus
Madrid, Spain: The Fright Knight
San Jose, Costa Rica: Victor Bertrand
Sydney, Australia: Youngblood
Another look at the clock. 3:54.
Putting her eyes on her homework again, Chrissy's mind started to wander. She thought about Ellie: she'd been acting weird lately, ever since she got ghost powers. Maybe in time, she'd become a full-fledged ghost and try to blow them away...
She pushed such thoughts out of her mind. Ellie would never do that. iNever./i
A ring sounded throughout the school. The clock now read 4:00.
"Finally!" she said, gathering her books under her arm.
As the four left, they got into discussion. Jake and Ellie had been working round-the-clock trying to discover the origins of their powers. Numerous theories had been proposed: ecto-radiation exposure, extended overshadowing, even a stray bolt from the IGD that blasted the robotic arms at them. Yet none of them made sense.
Also in discussion was what the army was doing when these ghost attacks happened. Usually, the National Guard was called in whenever ghosts ran rampant. But that time at school, the Army said they'd gotten no alarm of a stray ghost.
"What do you think happened?" Dave asked.
"Maybe an alarm failure," Chrissy said. "But that won't happen again. The school's wired its alarms directly to the Amity Park Guard Base."
"Good," Ellie said. "We've got enough on our plates with detention. Our parents are gonna be so mad..."
"Really?" Chrissy asked. "They never yell at you."
"Oh, they can yell." Jake was insistent in his voice.
"If that's true," Dave said, "then I've never heard them."
"That's because they don't yell at us very often." Jake said.
"But they can really punish a kid," Ellie added as she started to open her locker. "You never know when you might be walking into a trap–"
Ellie was interrupted by the barrage of green goo that shot from her locker. It propelled her backwards with such force that, by the time she'd realized what happened, she was stuck to the wall, suspended in a neon-green sac of liquid.
"Wghgahg..." Her voice was muffled from the goo.
"Ellie!" Chrissy said.
"Don't worry, sis!" Jake said, running to the sac. "We'll get you–"
Another blast of ooze shot from the locker, encasing Jake beside his sister.
"Ggagaghgh!" he screamed, muted.
Chrissy looked at the locker: it had what looked like a gun barrel sticking out from it, dripping green slime. However, as it started to move outwards–causing Chrissy and Dave to back up a respectable distance–it was revealed to be what looked like a flute, held by a gloved hand. As the hand reached outwards, it was revealed to be attached to a green sleeved arm, which in turn was part of a being who'd looked like he'd come from a fantasy book.
He was dressed entirely in shades of green: forest-green cloak with a hood that obscured his face; emerald tunic; neon green tights and gloves; everything was green save for two things: a pair of solid red eyes and a silvery flute.
"Well, now..." the being murmured in a Scottish accent. "If it isn't the halfa scum that have caused us ghosts so much trouble..."
"Pity," the ghost in green said. "Truly a pity. I expected you to at least put up a fight."
Through the green ooze that was making his eyes sting, Jake heard the Scottish accent of the ghost that had entrapped them. He didn't understand; why hadn't their ghost senses warned them of the impending trap? Why couldn't they escape this gloppy substance?
He saw Chrissy and Dave run up to them, trying to dig through this abysmal slime, but they had as little success as he and Ellie did. Bringing the flute to his unseen lips, the ghost tooted out three notes, causing the two other children to freeze, trapped in a glowing aura.
"Silly children," the ghost said. "You cannot hope to free your friends in the presence of the Piper!"
Ellie snickered. "Pgigpgegr?" she said, muffled by the goo.
"It's my title!" Piper said defensively. "Not my name!" He irritably brought his flute up once again, playing five notes. A glowing vortex of energy appeared in the hallway of Casper High, casting green light across everything in the hall.
"Now," Piper continued, "I have business to take care of concerning you two halfas. You don't deserve our powers on this plane. Being able to phase through objects, to defy gravity, to take over mortal bodies–"
"Take over bodies?" Dave asked, still frozen.
"It's called overshadowing," Piper explained. "You cannot tell me you don't know how to do that."
Jake thought. He'd heard of the ability innate in ghosts to possess a mortal body, commanding it as though it were its own. He'd also speculated, after a bit of research, that they'd eventually be able to do it themselves. But they'd never really known how to enter a person.
"Now then," Piper said, "to the Ghost Zone with you munchkins!"
An idea popping into his head, Jake let his ghost half explode through his body. The slime prison around him blasted away like a grenade, covering the hall with gooze. Ellie, seeing the result, followed suit.
"What–you little demons!" Piper screamed. He tried to raise his flute once again, but was interrupted by Ellie's fist connecting with his head. He flew through some lockers, disappearing behind them. Immediately, the green auras around Dave and Chrissy disappeared, both children breathing a sigh of relief.
The ghost kids phased through the wall, oddly surprised when emerging in the office of Mr. Wilkinson. Inside was the office's owner, along with Gina Gray, sitting in a chair looking stunned.
"What the heck is going on?" the teacher exclaimed.
"Shut it, grandpa," Piper said dryly, and Wilkinson sat down, scared stiff.
Raising the flute to his lips again, Piper tooted out four notes. Immediately, a searing pain filled the heads of both the ghost-twins. In Jake's opinion, it felt like sticking one's head inside a microwave, setting it to HIGH, and waiting twenty minutes as your brain was fried.
Piper took his little move with much glee. "Now, while they're distracted..."
The ghost in green flew towards Gina, dropping his flute as he did so. The pain receded from Jake's head in time for him to see Piper go intangible and actually imeld/i with the body of his month-long friend. She seemed to sway for a moment, temporarily glowing green, before her eyes opened.
They were Piper's blood red flames.
The girl lunged at the still-recovering ghost twins, Piper's voice roaring from her mouth. Jake jumped out of the way, his sister doing the same in the opposite direction. Gina/Piper then faced towards Jake, rushing to engage him in melee combat. The possessor of this girl let out an impressive combination of strikes: right punch, left hook, right jab, left haymaker... It was all Jake could do to keep from hitting his friend as he blocked continually.
"What are you waiting for?" Ellie asked. "Hit back!"
This distraction provided ample opportunity for Gina's fist to connect with Jake's eye, wheeling him backwards through a table, underneath which was a craven Mr. Wilkinson. The teacher whimpered, motioning for the ghost-boy to stay away. Jake smirked at this.
Getting up, he could see Gina and Ellie in one-on-one combat. It seemed as though Piper were doing this as a stage performance, elegantly twisting and diving out of the way like a Shakespearean swordsmaster. Jake could see the marquee: Piper and Ellie! A one-time-only performance for an audience of two!
With a swift kick to the jaw, Ellie flew back into a painting, ripping through the canvas. Gina–or Piper, depending on how you looked at it–laughed haughtily, clearly enjoying this fight.
"Well," he said. "I'd love to stay and trounce you two some more, but I have other things to do." He slipped out of Gina's body as though it were an article of clothing, leaving the girl unconscious on the floor. He picked up the flute, sounding off five notes, and opening another swirling green vortex. "Ta!" he said, walking through the shrinking swirl, which promptly disappeared.
Ellie looked at her brother with more disbelief than Jake thought she could even have.
"YOU LET HIM GET AWAY!" Ellie yelled.
"I DID?" Jake retorted. "YOU WERE THE ONE HE KICKED ACROSS THE ROOM!"
Dave buried his head in his hands as he listened to his two best friends fight. Chrissy sat beside him, a similar worried expression on her face. Their parents might not have yelled much, but these two sure could. It was mortifying to see them like this, but even moreso that this conversation could be heard easily by anyone within a hundred yards of school property.
"I'm telling you, it's not that bad!" Jake said.
"What?" Ellie asked mockingly. "That we got our butts kicked by a ghost we'd otherwise be able to beat just because he possessed my arch-rival?"
"I wasn't going to hit Gina!"
"Why? She's never done anything but boss me around!"
"She might be more than that, you know!"
"Like what?"
"LIKE MY FRIEND!"
Ellie didn't throw back another comment this time. Dave and Chrissy were wide-eyed and open-mouthed. They weren't sure what to make of those three words. Three simple words whose meaning was too large to gather at once.
Like my friend.
Gina Gray was friends with Jake Fenton?
"I..." Ellie started, choking on her own words. "I...just...go away."
"What?" Jake asked.
"GO AWAY!" she yelled. "I NEVER WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU AGAIN!"
She stomped off towards the table, saying angrily, "Come on, Chrissy."
Both people just sat there, speechless.
"What?" Ellie asked. "You're not my friend anymore?"
"What–no!" Chrissy managed to say. "I'm just...getting used to this, is all."
She got up, leaving with the girl of Dave's dreams...