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

-Ten-

"I don't think it's real," Sam murmured for the umpteenth time. She threw her hands up in frustration and sighed. "This is it. The only article. Not even an obituary exists. And," she said, holding up a hand, "I had to hack this system to see this file. It was protected by some kind of copyright lock… thing."

"I still can't believe you know how to hack a computer," Tucker said, frowning slightly. He fiddled with his PDA in her computer chair.

"Well, it doesn't matter now," Sam said, placing her laptop beside her on the bed and curling up her legs. "It's the only mention of Vlad Masters being dead. Every other article I'm finding of him has him being a gazillionaire and doing all sorts of amazing things."

"He's an ass," I muttered. Sam sniggered.

"First impressions?"

"He just… I don't know," I admitted, sitting up straighter. I had (thankfully) moved to the floor. One more second next to her and I might have jumped her. But I had more pressing things on my mind. "Something about him rubs me the wrong way, y'know?"

"He seems… pompous?" Tucker offered. I shook my head. We sat in silence for a moment.

"We totally had a connected thought earlier," Sam said, breaking the silence. Her voice was soft. She clasped her fingers together.

"Yeah," I said, wondering what her point was. It was bizarre. I had never had that phenomenon with someone before. I was starting to believe that there was more to humans than I previously thought. There was something about them, something… mysterious, even, in the way they worked. The way their body functions in such complexity and yet, they're resilient; how they're puzzle-solvers and creators; how they form intimate relationships that shape their very being. The more time I spent with them, the more I felt connected to them.

And at this moment, I felt more connected to them than I had anyone in my entire life.

"I don't know," Sam muttered. "Everything is just so… messed up."

"You got that right," Tucker said, grabbing his vibrating phone from her computer desk and flipping it open. "It's all messed up."

Jazz.

That was the only word running through my head for the next three days. Jazz, Jazz, Jazz. How was she doing? Would she be alright?

The phone call was from Tucker's mom, who had just been contacted by Mrs. Fenton, who was looking for me. Apparently, a "large, mechanical being" was causing general havoc at a sporting goods store. There were three injuries; a sophomore boy, a freshman girl, and a junior girl named Jasmine Fenton.

Immediately we turned on the television and, lo and behold, there was the destroyed building with police cars surrounding it.

I knew the ghost as soon as I saw him flash by the camera. He actually isn't a very big or scary guy; he has a mechanized body that he uses to propel his "great hunter" persona.

After convincing Sam to stay home, Tucker and I raced to the scene, where the Fentons were having trouble focusing on catching Skulker (the ghost) while their only child was being shipped away to a hospital somewhere. Thankfully, no one happened to notice a flash of light as Danny vanished and Phantom appeared.

Suddenly gaining a sense of authority, I flew over to Skulker, landing right in front of him. He looked at me, shocked – but then a smile appeared on his face and his perfectly shaped, metal teeth gleamed with wicked delight as he looked down at me.

"My, my," he said, stepping back, "if it isn't Phantom, Clockwork's little pup. I was wondering where you had run off to."

"Knock it off, Skulker," I said, balling my hands into fists. I marched forwards, police, civilians, and the Fentons watching me in surprise. "Leave them alone."

"Protecting humans, are we now?" Skulker commented, standing up straight. He kicked a half-fallen lamppost completely over and stood on its base, his eyes training over the crowd that had gathered. I stood my ground.

"Someone has to," I replied. "With fools like you going through – it's a wonder they've lasted this long."

"Ahh, I see now," Skulker said, suddenly appearing bare inches from my face, sneering at me. "Once a human, always a human… Well, in any case," he continued, stepping back, "they opened the door and didn't shut it, so I take that as an open invitation to come and go as I please, right?"

"That doesn't mean you can terrorize people," I said, my anger growing. I could feel the rage building in my chest; even though I didn't have to breathe as a ghost, I could still feel my lungs burning and my heart racing.

"It's not terrorism," Skulker replied. He grinned wickedly. "It's the hunt."

Suddenly, the world around me exploded. He had dispatched some type of explosive that destroyed the ground. Pieces of concrete zipped past my head and crashed into glass windows, little shards flying everywhere. I became intangible and tried to get out of the vicinity of the flying glass shards, when I watched it rain down on the people. And, for a moment, my heart went out to them.

When I first came here, I identified myself as separate from the humans. But as time went on…

"Leave them alone!" I cried, zooming over to Skulker. People were getting hurt now.

Skulker just laughed and stepped out of my reach, but I somehow reached out and grabbed onto his metal shoulders and the next thing I knew, I was hovering centimeters from his mechanized face. Even he looked surprised.

"They didn't do anything to you," I said through bared teeth. Skulker just raised his eyebrows at me, and attempted to walk away while I was still glowering at him. However, as soon as he tried to walk away, we both realized that my fingers had somehow melted his armor and my hands were now holding him in place. His jaw dropped (and mine did too, slightly) as we realized we were surrounded with a bright white light. My energy had become so powerful—

"He sent me," Skulker hissed suddenly. "Plasmius."

"Why?" I said back, my entire body shaking. I could feel it shaking and trembling, yet I felt as if I were watching it from the outside…

"I don't know," Skulker replied, his hand slowly reaching for his chest plate (I thought nothing of it.) "He just told me to come and… retrieve you."

"Wha—"

Then everything flashed into darkness.

I opened my eyes the next day. And then I found out that Jazz was hurt. Badly. Not just hurt as in injured, but infected. She was sick.

Every time I seemed to get closer to finding out more about that was going on, another person I was close to was injured. First Tucker was attacked; then Sam was severely beaten. Now Jazz is sick. Ech,

Humans have to deal with a lot, I realized. I had all this emotional baggage (my stomach, chest and head felt like they were going to explode) and I still had to go to school. Didn't I get a chance to sort everything out? No, of course not.

I hadn't even seen Sam and Tucker in what felt like forever. The forty-five minute classes I had with them throughout the day was all I had. I couldn't let Sam know about the ghost part of me – I loved her too much. And Tucker… he wanted to help, but at the rate I was going, the next time someone I care about was attacked… it was going to end in death.

On top of that, even though I'd been here for awhile, I was still getting used to the way humans lived. My brain was jammed to the exploding point of information. I could actually feel my head pounding as I stuck it out in classes, trying to concentrate. For the next week, all I did was go to school, attempt to work, and go home. Jazz was doing okay, luckily, but ghosts were coming through at a much faster rate. I would go out and attempt to keep them under control.

At the same damned time, the news in this town somehow pinpointed me (as Phantom) as the culprit for what happened. That Skulker was my "accomplice". What was I to do? I couldn't prove that I wasn't his accomplice without completely blowing my cover and having the entire planet realize a ghost was in their midst.

No way. I was not doing that. So now I had to live in this town and be reprimanded for things I didn't do. I was the one keeping all these crazy nuts under control, and yet I was blamed for their actions. It was just getting ridiculous.

And Vlad. The more ghosts that came through the portal, the more whispers I heard about Plasmius being in the human world. I knew it. Vlad is Plasmius's accomplice; there was no other explanation for it.

But the whispers were becoming alarming. Somehow, Plasmius had knowledge of things that had yet to happen. He knew that certain ghosts would come through the portal at certain times. He knew what they would do, or a variation of what they would do. It was almost as if the ghosts were written down in a story that Plasmius had already read.

And hell, were they coming. All ghosts that I knew, and then some. Ghosts I was familiar with – Skulker, Ember, Technus, Undergrowth, Ghost Writer, Vortex, Aragon, yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah. They were coming through in hordes, like an army – I was fighting a war, and losing.

Was this the reason I was put here? To stop the crazy ghosts from my world from tearing this world apart? It was outrageous. This can't be the only reason. Surely, Master would have told me.

Right?

On the day Jazz was released from the hospital, Mrs. Fenton found me lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, a physics book draped over my stomach. I was spaced out, and exhausted, and recovering from a particularly nasty fight with a ghost I'd never even heard of. I was revolving all this information around in my mind, over and over again. And every time I tried to make sense of what was happening, my mind just continued to come to one conclusion: why?

"Danny?" Mrs. Fenton said, jerking me out of my stupor. I glanced at her, and she smiled at me. Our eyes were really similar, I'd noticed. "Jazz is home."

"She is?" I said, and I sat up, laying my physics book aside. "Are you sure it's safe for her here? Y'know, what with all the—"

"It's the safest place in town," Mrs. Fenton said softly. She looked tired and wearied. She had just gotten off a lengthy phone call from the one and only Vlad Masters. "It's strange, isn't it, how the ghosts in this town started arriving all at once?"

"Yeah," I said quickly, willing her to change the subject to anything else. "It's weird. Where is she?"

"In her room. She's really fine, but her father…" she trailed off and gave a weak smile. "He's overprotective." I couldn't help but smile. I walked past her and out of the room, walking down the hallway to Jazz's room. I hadn't even realized that I left Mrs. Fenton alone in that room, where she stood, looking at the pale blue walls that had been painted so long ago.

Jazz was sitting at her desk, her school books in a pile next to her. She was reading something on her computer screen, a letter in her hand.

"My essay won an award, Danny," she said as I entered. "Can you shut the door?"

"Sure," I said, closing it. Jazz turned to me and smiled.

"I want you to read it," she said, holding out a pile of papers. I stopped.

"You do?" I asked. "Are you sure? I thought it was private."

"Well…" Jazz said, grinning. "It's kind of… about you."

"What?"

"Just take it," Jazz said, and she stood up and sat on her bed, beckoning me over. I sat down next to her and took the papers in my lap.

"Well, it's partly about you," Jazz said, placing a hand on the papers. "And about my family."

It was then that I realized just what the paper was about.

"Are you sure?" I asked again. Jazz put her arm around my shoulders, pulled me towards her, and kissed my temple.

"You're like a brother to me," she said. "Yes, I'm sure."

With that, I began to read.

Look! An attempt at plot development! Oh no! And I find this chapter moves too quickly, but if I went any slower this story was going to go nowhere. I've got to get better at moving the plot along. Anyway, pretty much most of my readers have gotten Danny's connections to the Fentons half-right. Whoop dee doo. On a side note, I went to a marching band festival today in New Hampshire, and was promptly poured on. We left half way through. Let me tell you; 100 wool is not fun to get wet. Not at all. Btw, any of you English dorks out there, I made a reference to John Gardner's novel Grendel somewhere in there. OH YEAH. I'm a huge dork.