Author's Note: Here we go… I'll try to write an Eternal chapter this weekend, too, but only if I can manage. If I don't, Manda's going to be ticked with me. Anyway, sorry to break it to you but there's very little romance in this one. Sure, the few muses and gestures, but nothing pivotal. If you want to see that spur up, I suggest reading Cold As Ice if you haven't yet.
Control
"Wait!"
Tucker stared from his place on the sidelines as the tension between Valerie and Danny was relieved, but only in favor of a new threat. From behind the red clad huntress, the figure of a ghost had appeared. As soon as he laid eyes upon him, his insides grew cold and his mind became numb. He was having difficulty thinking properly, but he and Sam managed to exclaim a warning to their otherwise busy friend.
Even while he said this, he felt his feet moving him forward. Not to assist Danny, butby some strange command of their own.Sam stood beside him, but she seemed to be more focused on the outside world than he. He just couldn't stop staring at the newcomer.
It didn't matter, though, because as soon as Valerie's weapon fired, whatever had gripped his undying attention faded. It seemed like he suddenly realized that a battle was about to take place. "Who is that?" he asked Danny.
The ghost easily deflected the powerful blast from her canon just by moving his hands. No visible shield as far as Tucker could see. It shot through the air into the top of a building. All of Valerie's attention was now on him.
"I don't have the slightest clue," answered Danny. "Wherever he came from, he's definitely a higher priority than Val right now."
He tried his best not to notice the use of the nickname right after she hadtried to disintegrate him.
Again, Valerie aimed another shot at him. She had to know that if he'd dodged the first one so easily, the second would make just as much damage, but she was crazy after all. The bald ghost redirected the ectoplasm's path and it collided violently with another building. It was obvious that this was going to get messy quickly.
Danny flew up next to Valerie, his fists glowing dangerously. She turned to him, clearly annoyed. "I've got this!" she yelled angrily. As the words left her mouth, a thin blue ecto-ray made contact with her hover board and she flew backward, almost loosing grip of her weapons.
"Yeah. Totally under control."
The ghost in front of him chuckled warmly. The action surprised Danny, as well as Tucker and Sam below. His features, though as disturbing as most ghosts, seemed wise and congenial. His words, on the other hand, had the same chilling effect his stare had. "So, instead of a human opponent with nifty little guns," he said smugly, "I get the middle of the spectrum. Oh well, I suppose one can only take what they can."
With that, Danny's eyes filled with the blue light making its way straight for him.
"Look out!" cried Tucker, but Danny hadn't the time to duck. He absorbed the ray in his chest, falling a few meters closer to the ground. Just has he slipped from the fight, an unexpected ally reentered the scene.
Valerie once again aimed at the ghost, this time with a new, smaller weapon. A bright red substance flew from the barrel and landed directly on the ghost's face. He cried out in rage and clawed at it, but it stuck tightly to his face.
"What is she doing?" Tucker asked Sam.
"Like I said, she's not an idiot," she answered. "She knows when to fight with Danny and when to fight against him. Well, she shouldn't fight against him anyway, but that's not the point."
Whoever the specter was, his hands fell back to his sides rather calmly. Danny took the moment of defenselessness to fly forward, arms outstretched, but as he neared his face blue beams flew from his eyes, red slime spattering everything nearby. Including Danny.
He reeled, trying to peel some of the adhesive from his suit to no avail. He went intangible but it simply became intangible as well. "What the heck is this stuff?" he yelled at Valerie.
"Highly condensed ectoplasm," Valerie replied. She aimed once again at the ghost. "Blast it off and get back in this fight, Phantom. You'll have enough of that stuff on you later, anyway."
"Yeah, I figured that much," he answered dryly. Nonetheless, both Danny and Valerie began to fly toward the now invulnerable enemy.
Valerie shot again, this time a set of ropes sparkling with electricity erupted from the gun. "I don't know who you are, or how you keep dodging my shots," she said, "but this one will shock you!"
Tucker sighed, slapping his face with the palm of his hand. "I thought Danny was the one who came up with the bad one-liners."
He then felt a sharp pain in the back of his head after Sam slapped him. "Focus, Tuck," she snapped. "Do you have the thermos in your backpack? It doesn't look like this is going so well."
It wasn't. Much as he had changed the course of the other rounds, the high voltage ropes simply flew toward the left. They headed straight for Danny, who went intangible at the last moment before they bound him.
The ghost smiled politely, appearing abashed at his own behavior. "Well, where are my manners?" he said to Valerie. "My name is Cyrus. And seeing as how my main objective does not concern you, young huntress, please don't hold a grudge at me when I do this."
He held up a flaming blue hand, and a large mass of energy appeared, flying straight for Valerie. She had no time to react; the force made contact with her, encasing her completely. At first she just stood there, frozen in time, as it seemed. Then she fell from her hover board to the street below. She landed in a crumpled heap, her mask removed to show her eyes closed peacefully. Her board remained floating in the sky.
Eyes wide, Tucker ran instinctively toward the fallen girl, Sam tailing behind him.
"Valerie!" Danny cried from above, momentarily distracted. In that time, Cyrus nailed him in the back. He yelped, though somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought it should have hurt more than it had. It still hurt, though.A lot.
This ghost was definitely powerful. Whatever it was he had done to Valerie was something he hadn't ever seen before. It was unsettling. For a brief moment, Danny wished that he were able to duplicate himself as much as his future self had.
When he turned to face him, Cyrus smirked. His superiority over Danny was obvious in the words he spoke. "A shame; she was actually almost a formidable opponent for a human girl. Not by her own accord, of course," he added thoughtfully.
Danny glared, his green eyes flashing dangerously. He flew above and in front of the ghost, looking down threateningly. "What is your objective, then? "
"My objective? Well, that's definitely your business, isn't it?" he sneered."Do you truly believe I would tell you?" Cyrus shook his head amusedly. "Child, the key to victory is keeping the enemy guessing, or in the dark if you will. You would know that, of course, if you had any form of training." He lifted his hand again soon Danny was hit by another tirade of ectoplasmic rays.
"In the dark?" Danny asked after dodging the attacks, "Well, if you insist." He pointed to a streetlamp hanging above Cyrus and shot the light bulb, showering him with sparks and glass. It didn't do much, except darken the street a bit and sidetrack him.
Below the scene, Sam and Tucker were trying to multitask by pulling Valerie to the sidewalk, making sure Danny wasn't getting hurt, and dodging beams that had missed their targets all at once. "Do you think she'll be okay?" Sam asked, putting a finger over her wrist to check her pulse. "What do you think he did to her?"
"Not a clue," Tucker answered. Valerie had fallen at least fifteen feet, so he checked for broken bones. The girl was being beaten to a pulp lately. "It looks like she just passed out, though. She'll be okay for now I think." He lifted her red mask from the ground beside them and slipped it over her head again. "I think she knows that I know, but I'm not sure. It's better if she thinks you and Danny don't suspect her."
Sam let go of her arm, satisfied that she was all right. Standing up, she grabbed Tucker's backpack while it was still around his shoulders and opened it, despite his yelps. After fishing past the assorted tech she couldn't identify, she pulled the Fenton Thermos by the strap of out of the bag.
"Stay there," she warned, running back into the midst of the fight. Tucker cocked his head in disbelief after her. What the heck did she think she was doing? He groaned, but didn't move from his spot to watch her.
Underneath the battle wasn't any safer than a few feet from it. She looked up and saw the bright flashing lights of rays, shields, and brief moments where she couldn't see either ghost. Finally, both of them were visible. However, they were so high… from where the two were on the ground, it looked as though Cyrus was talking to Danny in between shots. His lips moved, but the distance and the crashes drowned the sounds out. Tucker had to wonder how no one had rushed outside or called the police yet.
"Danny!" she yelled at the top of her lungs, pulling the lid from the thermos. "Move. I need a clear shot!"
Danny looked down at the smear of black below them. Cyrus followed his gaze and saw her holding the thermos threateningly over her head. "Oh, yes," he said softly, as though he was being reminded of something pleasant. "Of course." He looked knowingly back at Danny before diving to the street below.
"Get away from them!" he shouted through clenched teeth. He followed the ghost's path, but stopped in surprise at what was happening.
Cyrus simply stood in front of her, looking at her with a determinedly blank face. Sam froze, her glare softening into one of tranquility. Slowly but surely, her arms lowered down to her waist, her grip on the thermos weakening, and she released it to the ground. She continued staring into the ghost's blue eyes, her violet ones glazing over with a dreamy look.
Tucker stood from his spot on the sidewalk, gazing in concern at her. "S-Sam?" he asked hesitantly. What was happening to her?
"What are you doing?" Danny asked from behind the ghost. He didn't answer. Danny's fists began to glow neon. "What," he repeated aggressively, "are you doing to her?"
Before Danny could raise the arm to strike, a shattering scream of terror and helplessness escaped from Sam's mouth. Her eyes were wide and she stared at Cyrus in the deepest apprehension. She tripped backwards, breathing heavily and gripping her hair, her eyes squeezed shut.
"Sam!" both boys exclaimed. Tucker rushed over to her, kneeling down and rubbing her shoulders as her breathing hastened. She was truly shaken up, not looking up or uttering a sound other than her heavy gasps.
Danny forcefully ripped his eyes from her distress and targeted Cyrus instead. "You!" he yelled. He flew straight for him, grabbing him by the collar of his dark robes and pinning him to a building. "What did you to do her? Whathappened to her and Valerie?"
Cyrus grinned wickedly. "Learn for yourself, why don't you?" he hissed. He kicked Danny away and with a long sweep of his robes and an earsplitting crack, he disappeared into nothing.
He hovered there for a moment, staring at the empty space of air Cyrus had left behind. The words he had spoken during their battle before Sam's interruption kept running through his mind, no matter how much he wanted to push them all away. In just one short fight, he had easily rendered one of the toughest girls he knew unconscious, added to his list of worries for the summer, and totally terrified the one person he knew who never –
Why wasn't he down there helping her?
He suddenly became much more alert, looking behind him as Tucker gently helped Sam back up to her feet. He dove back to where they were and grabbed her wrist to pull her to him. Taking her chin and lifting it up for a better view of her face, he whispered, "What happened to you?"
Sam bit her lip and clasped her other hand over the one he was holding her arm up with. Closing her eyes she tried to relive the last few moments, tried to find the correct words to describe it. She lowered her face again and felt Tucker rub her back encouragingly.
"I don't really know," she finally said. "There was some kind of… of a presence or something inside my mind. No, not just my head. Everywhere. It was like something was…." She paused to find the right words. "Something was pulling at everything in me, like my heart was about to be ripped from my chest, only worse. And there were whispers. That's all I could hear was whispers from somewhere."
Danny looked stricken by her words as she took a deep breath to stop her shaking. "It's not that bad, Danny, really," she finished. She smiled reassuringly up to him. "Anyway, I'm fine now. Whatever he was doing, I stopped him."
"What was he doing?" Tucker asked thoughtfully. He leaned over to pick up the thermos.
Danny let go of her wrist and pulled her hair behind her ear. "I don't know," he said, turning to Tucker. "He didn't say. He sure did pull off a few big magic tricks, though." He scanned the area with his eyes, taking in the damage. The streetlight was blown, a few bricks and plaster were hanging from the walls of buildings; at least they weren't in a highly residential area. The hover board Valerie had been riding had finally fallen back to the road. His gaze finally landed on the girl on the sidewalk. "Is she doing okay?"
Tucker nodded. "She's fine. I think her wrist may be sprained, though. I can't tell if she has any cuts or bruises, though, seeing as how her outfits covering every inch of her."
"Be glad he didn't take any opportunities," Sam muttered from behind them. Tucker glared at the comment, but both boys were silently thankful that she was making snide jokes.
They walked back to her, Danny and Tucker lifting her up. "Did either of you try waking her up?"
"We didn't have much time to try, what with Sam going all-out Xena like she did, tryingto save your arse," Tucker replied, getting his revenge. Sam gave a weak scowl and the two boys wrapped Valerie's arms around them. Sam grabbed Danny's arm as he went intangible flying all four of them back in the sky.
After dropping Valerie off in her room, going back for the hover board that they'd forgotten to bring with them, and discreetly waking Mr. Grey while they were invisible and alerting him to check on Valerie, it was creeping up on one o' clock in the morning. Danny dropped Tucker off at his house, where he waited long enough to see him open his bedroom door to two very sleepy and disgruntled parents. He would have to find a way to explain how he had been in his bedroom all night after coming home from Sam's, and that neither of them must have noticed.
When he finally returned Sam to her bedroom, he yawned loudly. "I'm wiped," he said, letting his form slip from ghost to human. He scratched his head and tried to cover up another yawn. "That new ghost can definitely pack a punch."
"Are you hurt?" asked Sam, absentmindedly kicking a few metal magazines under her bed to clear up some of the random clutter.
"I should be asking you that." He sat down on the bed and Sam took a spot next to him. "You're not totally fine, Sam. And I don't think I should leave you alone tonight after what happened."
"What?" Sam leaned back and lifted a brow nervously. "Danny, I'm fine, you don't have to stay. You'll be in deep with your parents. You know how you're dad is."
Danny wasn't able to listen properly. He could already feel himself ready to fall asleep. "Yeah, I do. I'll call Jazz. After I calm her down for waking her up at the ungodly hour -- jeez, you'd think even for her, summer would mean sleeping in – I'll convince her to make an excuse. Besides, if I fall asleep while flying and run into a wall, I'll blame it on you."
Sam shook her head, but caved in. "You are so overprotective, Danny," she muttered, standing up and walking to her closet. She pulled out a small, navy blue cot and opened it, throwing a blanket and one of her pillows on it."You don't ever tell us what's going on in your head, but you always want to know if we're okay."
"What are you talking about?" he asked drowsily. Hewalked over to the cot and fell onto it, not bothering to cover himself.
"Nothing." Sam sighed and flipped off the light. "I'll call Jazz. You get some rest."
The sound of Danny's even breaths were her only reply.
Author's Note: This was a total bytch to write at first, but after a while I mangaed. By the way, guys, this is a little late because of Let the Games Begin. Whee. I was stupid for a moment, but inspiration hit me! Anyway, check it out and stay tuned for Eternal.
See you in the afterlife,
Saramis