Empyreal
empyreal (em-pir-ee-uhl) adj. - pertaining to the highest heaven in the cosmology of the ancients.

-Five-

"So, anyway, that means we'll have some quiet for a change," Jazz said as she pulled onto the side of the road. We had reached a modest sized house made of light blue shingles with a slanted roof. "Alright, Foley, time to discharge."

"Thanks, Jazz," Tucker said, climbing out of the car. He saluted to me, waved to Jazz, and ran inside his house.

Jazz turned the wheel and whizzed down complicated sidestreets, the warm air wafting into the car through the open windows.

For some reason, I had this deep-rooted, uneasy feeling about this 'Vlad Masters'. And I wanted to get more information on him.

"So… do you know anything about this Vlad Masters?" I asked casually as she pulled in behind the large brick building. Jazz shrugged and hopped out of the car.

"Eh, I've seen some very old pictures of him – but aside from that, I don't know really anything about him." Jazz slammed her car door and headed into the house through the kitchen door, dropping her keys on the counter. A note had been left, taped to the counter, and Jazz grabbed it and taped it to the refrigerator.

I glanced around the kitchen, the sight of it becoming more familiar every time I stepped into it.

Jazz was rooting around in a pile of what appeared to be some old papers that was near a wooden box that held all sorts of bread products. (Break box?)

"Aha, here it is," she said triumphantly, holding up a small picture frame. She handed it off to me and started rearranging the papers.

It was a photo of three people, who looked a little bit older than Jazz. The edges of the photo were yellowed with age, and the bottom right corner was torn. I squinted at the photo. The two people to the left looked familiar…

"That's my parents with him," Jazz said, glancing down at the photo with me. "See? There's – there's my mom and dad, and there he is. Vlad Masters. Before he became a huge business tycoon, that is."

"Oh," I murmured. I turned the frame slightly. That man… ugh. He looked… very faintly familiar. Like I'd seen him maybe once before, but it was a very quick glance…

"Yeah, that's him," Jazz said as she sat down. She had a mug before her. "I can't believe that man used to study with them. I mean, he's a huge, successful business man. Who would've known that someone that powerful used to study ghosts." At the word 'ghosts', I glanced up.

"He… they studied ghosts?" I asked slowly. Jazz nodded.

"Yeah… I guess… I guess now is as good a time as ever to tell you, then," she said, leaning back in her chair. "My parents have studied ghosts for an incredibly long time. I know my mom started getting interested in them some time in high school, and my dad believed he lived in a haunted house for years. So the three of them ended up in one of the only universities that had paranormal studies, and bam – my parents study ghosts for a living." I just watched her drink dark, steaming liquid from the mug.

"And, this portal that I've heard about…?" I asked. Jazz suddenly choked on her drink and put the mug down, coughing into a napkin.

"Oh – that," she began, clearing her throat and sitting up straight. The air in the room suddenly felt tense.

There was something about that portal… that I wasn't supposed to know.

"I guess, because you're living here… you can know," Jazz said, sighing. "They built that thing years ago," she continued. "I couldn't have been older than three, maybe four when they finally perfected it. It took them another year to get it online – and the next thing we knew, we had a working door into the Ghost Zone."

"Why did your parents build it?" I asked. Again, the air in the room tensed, and this time it felt like there was a hint of sadness to it. Jazz bit her lower lip and looked down at her mug.

"They… they were trying to find – ghosts," she said, finishing her sentence very quickly. I frowned. Obviously, she tacked 'ghosts' in there as a last-minute replacement to what they were really looking for.

"Oh, I see," I said. Jazz gave me a half-hearted smile.

"That's… that's all I can really tell you, Danny. I'm sorry."

"It's alright," I said, disappointed. Apparently, the Fentons had been searching for something, but what? And why couldn't I know? Damnit.

We sat in a silence for a time, Jazz tapping her fingers on the mug, myself sitting down in the chair, staring off into the distance. There were a lot of things I wanted to figure out that were tumbling around in my mind.

What were the feelings I had towards Sam? Why were the Fentons so secretive with what they did with a portal to the Ghost Zone? Why do my powers still work, and why am I here? And, most importantly, who the hell is Vlad Masters and why is he so familiar to me?!

"Danny? You alright?" Jazz asked. I turned to her and looked down. My fists were clenched and even trembling a little bit.

Did I do that?

Oops.

"Oh, uh, I'm fine," I said, coughing a bit. My throat hurt gently right afterwards, and I cursed myself for a lousy cover-up. Jazz raised her eyebrows at me, and then glanced at my still-clenched fist.

"Well—" she started when a shrieking alarm went off in the house. All of the lights in the house started flashing red, and a wailing siren echoed throughout the house, intensifying my already aching head.

"What's that?!" I cried. Jazz jumped up and ran to a cabinet, swinging it open to reveal a complicated-looking control panel. She flipped a few switches and pushed a button, and the lights faded and the sirens stopped. I uncovered my ears and looked around, my heart racing.

"Ghost alarm," Jazz muttered. Then I felt it. The familiar chill that ran down my spine whenever another ghost was near. "There's a powerful one near to here." I stood up, a faint, cool breeze creeping up my arms. I wasn't sure if Jazz could sense it, but I sure as hell could sense the nearby ghost.

"Oh, crap, what do we do?" Jazz said, looking around. She ran into the hallway. "Stay here!" she called. "I'm going to do downstairs and see if I can, I dunno, track it or something." And with that, I heard a door slam and the house was silent.

Perfect.

Leaning forwards on the table to use my hands as support, I closed my eyes and concentrated again. I had been practicing, and calling forth my powers was getting easier and easier. I could already feel it racing through me, just begging to come out.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw my old hands, the ones that were darker and filled with unrelenting energy.

I walked out of the kitchen and flew straight through the front door, out into the street. The sun was blinding, and I had to shield my eyes. However, I saw the ghost that had appeared. It was down the street.

A line of cars was before it, clearly having crashed because of this ghost appearing in the way. People were running away desperately, some people calling for help on cell phones. I frowned.

This ghost was nothing. Another low-level, no-work lowlife from the Ghost Zone who broke out and decided to have some fun,

Well, now it's my turn for some fun. I flew over to the ghost, passing through him and landing in front of him.

"What are you doing?" I said, silence falling over the crowd. The large ghost dropped the car it was holding and sneered at me.

"Me? What are you doing? Coming here to take my fun away?" it said. I rolled my eyes. Yes, I looked young; but I had experience beyond their imagination.

"No, I'm here to kick your ass," I snarled, holding a palm out. The energy began to grow in my hand, and the next thing I knew, ectoplasm came flying from my palm and hit the ghost squarely on the face. The entire crowd of terrified pedestrians stopped, most of them with expressions of shock and awe on their faces; a ghost that was fighting for them?

"What do you want with these humans, anyway?" I asked the partially deflated ghost, hovering above him. He looked up at me, one eye closed and injured.

"Hmmpf," he muttered. "As if I should tell you!" he continued. "Why are you protecting them?" I held up my hands and shot another blast at him, a more powerful one this time.

"Why not?" I called back down. The ghost held the stump that was now his arm. He was literally falling apart.

"Okay! Okay," the ghost breathed, holding up his other arm. "I'm going." And with that, he vanished. The crowd below me was just staring at me now, many whispering. I looked up; a news helicopter was above me, the propellers (that's what they're called, I think) creating a loud, whipping sound.

That…. Was way too easy. But I didn't have time to dwell over the oddness of the situation. I had to get out of there – I couldn't stay for long.

And with that, I zoomed back to the Fenton household, wondering what the hell just happened.

"…mysterious ghost boy defeated the large specter that had stopped traffic at the downtown crossing earlier today," the woman on the news said, flashing a video of me speeding off into invisibility. Jazz was watching with a bored face, because she was hurriedly typing on her computer (again with these contraptions!) with her cell phone plugged into her ear at the same time.

I was sitting on the couch on the other end of the room, so nervous my hands were physically shaking and I felt like I was going to be sick. I had been caught. Not necessarily exposed, just caught. The world now knew that I was there and that I was a ghost on their side. At least, some people did. I think.

"Yes… Mom, relax," Jazz was saying, opening up a file. "Okay, now slow down so I can input all the information—"

Brrrrrring! Brrrrrrrring!

The sudden ringing caused me to nearly jump three feet in the air. Jazz rolled her eyes and picked up the phone.

"FentonhouseholdhowcanIhelpyou?" she said all at once, clearly anxious to get back to her phone call. "Okay," she said, and handed the phone off to me. "It's Tucker."

I grabbed the slender black instrument and, with a pounding heart, I ran breakneck speed up the stairs into my room, slamming the door behind me.

Now, I've only used a phone twice since I've been here, and I understood that it was a network of intricate cables and wires, but… I never really understood how it worked.

All I knew was that I could talk to Tucker without having to see him, and that was fine with me.

"So, I saw you on the news," Tucker said, cutting straight to the chase. I sat down on my carpeted floor in the center of my room, making sure there was no chance that anyone could hear through the windows or the door or even the walls.

"Yeah…" I replied weakly. What was there to say? Suddenly, out of nowhere, a pressure built up in my chest, and my nose tingled. What the—

"AaaCHOOOO!" I cried, sneezing. I rubbed my nose. I had been doing that more often lately.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"So… Are you starting your heroics already?" Tucker asked, a slightly amused tone in his voice. I slid next to my bed and leaned back against it, staring at the ceiling. The neutral colors seemed to make me feel less anxious.

"Well, there was a ghost, and the Fentons aren't home this weekend, so someone has to stop the ghost, right?" I said, smiling myself. At that moment, Jazz started yelling downstairs.

"ALRIGHT alright, Mom, I'm sorry, just tell me again and I'll—yeah, yeah I got it…"

"What's going on?" Tucker asked. "I heard yelling."

"I guess her parents found a ghost while they were away," I said, standing up. "I'm gonna go check it out."

"Yeah, maybe you'll know 'em," Tucker said jokingly. I smiled. He could always cheer me up.

The news anchor had moved past the story of my heroics and was now talking about some local art project. Jazz was standing up, both hands flying away at the keyboard. It amazed me how fast she was. She was inputting data along with receiving image files from the Fentons' cameras thousands of miles away. Jazz opened images of dark shadowy pictures that they had taken.

"Is that the ghost?" I asked. Jazz nodded.

"Yeah, a ghost that showed up during their reunion. They've dubbed it 'The Wisconsin Ghost'."

"Ooh, exciting," Tucker said in the phone. Jazz sighed heavily.

"This is so frustrate—ahh!" she cried, jumping back from the computer. One of the images she opened showed a rather good photo of the specter, as opposed to shadows and mirrors. "Oh, God, what a creepy looking thing. Looks more like a vampire than a ghost, though." I peered over her shoulder as she got back to work.

As I stared at the computer, Tucker talking away in my ear, I noticed something similar about the ghost. It was a photo of just its shoulder and head, nothing fancy. A large white body, glowing red eyes, the whole nine yards. But there was something about this ghost…

My eyes widened. My body began to shake. The strangest and strongest pangs of pain I had felt yet as a human began shaking at my stomach and chest, and I stumbled back, dropping the phone with a thud.

It was him.

It was Plasmius!

A million thoughts raced through my head. The wanted posters, the whispered rumors, the completely obliterated sections of the Zone, the mysterious, hushed meetings with Master where Plasmius just left yelling loudly… And there he was. On the screen. Here. In this country. With humans. How—When—

"Plasmius!" I said in a hushed whisper. Jazz turned around, gave me a quizzical look, then gasped and put down her phone, walking over to me and putting her hand on my forehead. I blinked. Somehow I had ended up on the other side of the room, sitting on the floor with my knees up, my back against the wall, my muscles tightened.

"Danny!" Jazz said, kneeling down on the floor. My eyes darted around rapidly. Just seeing his form terrified me. He always seemed to show up wherever I was—

"Danny, are you alright? You're burning up!" Jazz cried. But I didn't listen to her. I just breathed as deeply as I could. Suddenly it seemed as if the room was spinning. I couldn't tell if it really was, or I was still scared about Plasmius. But was I actually that scared? I mean, I was feeling physical pain…

The next thing I knew, my head connected with the floor. My eyes were closed, but I could still see. I saw Jazz back up, her hands over her mouth. She ran over to the phone I dropped. How was it I could still see when my eyes were obviously closed?

"Mom? Mom! Something happened to Danny, I have to call an ambulance!" Jazz cried. I blinked again. Now I was right next to her. I looked down.

Instead of jeans and socks, I saw boots and a cloak dangling around my feet. My eyes widened and I spun around, seeing my human body lying on the floor near the doorway. Jazz was hurriedly explaining to Tucker what happened, and hanging up. She turned – looking right at me! – and passed right through me to the television, which she turned off. I looked down again, and realized I could see the floorboards through my own feet. Okay, so I was invisible and intangible. That… works.

Jazz ran back over to where my human body was, leaning down close to it. She gasped and rocketed back, shaking her head.

"He's not breathing!" she cried. She looked around, panicked for a moment, then calmed herself down. "Okay, Jazz, you can do this. Just perform CPR and everything will be okay…"

"What's going on?" I cried out to no one. "Why the hell am I over here?"

"Relax," a comforting, familiar voice said inside my thoughts. "I knew this would happen eventually; your human body just rejected your ghost form momentarily because you were so worked up about seeing Plasmius on earth."

"Master?" I asked softly.

"Yes. It rejected you to make sure you didn't accidentally injure it or Jazz, but now you need to relax so I can re-attach you to the body before it dies." I nodded, closing my eyes. I unclenched my fists and allowed myself to relax, feeling my form almost whisp away.

"Relax…"

The next thing I knew I was opening my eyes, and Jazz was turned around. My chest felt like it was on fire and I wasn't getting any air. I was back in my human body – and I couldn't breathe! Panic spread throughout me as I tried to take in one long, choking breath – and started coughing.

Jazz spun around, on the phone, and dropped it – for the billionth time that night – at the sight of me sitting up and panting.

"Danny! You're awake!" she cried. She picked up the phone. "He's awake now, but I still think he should go to the hospital… Yes, O—Okay, we can do that, I suppose…" I sat with my back against the wall, my face wet from sweat. A man and a woman, both dressed in white came to the door later, and I was introduced to paramedics. They checked me out, said I was coming down with a "cold" (which didn't sound too good), and said whatever happened had passed because I was perfectly fine.

Throughout the entire ordeal I was sitting in that same spot, with my back against the wallpaper'd wall, thinking the same thought as it went through my head. It had occurred to me right after I woke up, pushing all thoughts of Plasmius out of my mind momentarily…

Is that what it's like to die?

I wonder.

I know, I know, lameass battle. Haha. Don't worry, there's a pretty intense battle scene coming up... eventually. That involves Sam, too! Anyway, I actually don't have any of the next chapter typed up, all I have right now is a couple chapters down the road and... well... the beginning of the end. Haha. Anyway, I'm gonna be too pre-occupied reading HP7 this weekend, so if I don't get a chapter up before Saturday, then you won't see a chapter until sometime next week. It normally takes me about 3 days to read a HP book, so I should be done in no time. See ya!