A/N: It's chapter 10! Did you guys know that I expected this piece to round out at about six chapters? XP That concept went out the window somewhere, oh well.
I thought it might interest you guys to know that I'm kind of using this story as a springboard to get me writing novels after I graduate university next month. I've been testing out my descriptive abilities, scene changes, dialogue flow and final word count estimates as this story's moved along. I actually had (it occurred around chapter 2) some vague concepts for a story with original characters, similar to Estrelas in that it'd be about a girl who meets a boy ghost...originally, the girl could see and talk to ghosts, but it seems that idea's been done a few times already in kid lit, so I'll probably confine it to the ghost boy just staying hidden from everyone but her. Obviously it'd be unrelated to Danny Phantom either, since, y'know, copyright infringement, but I may end up lifting the attic setting from this very piece, if I ever write that to be published. If and when I do, I hope none of you guys ever happen to read it and accuse me of plagiarism. ;) I'm sure you'd be able to identify it, though, now that I've mentioned it!
Anyway, thank you all for your reviews last chapter; suffice to say that nobody's very happy with Penelope Spectra right now.
Shout-outs!
mrit - Doesn't paranormal psychology seem like the most likely career ever for Jazz?
L'ange-sans-Ailes - Bertrand indeed! Unfortunately for Danny, he still doesn't have a clue who the flip Penelope is...and his ghost sense did go off, but he thinks it's Bertrand. XD
Epyon Zero - "Soul vampire"...what a fabulous term!
Galateagirl - Ah, she can't help it, you know the effect Spectra has on people...notice Sam didn't start getting really paranoid until Spectra touched her. ;) She "takes the thing that bothers someone most," as Danny once said, and makes them truly doubt themselves. Well, you want to be surprised, and there's no point in telling you now because this chapter is a major climactic point! Hope you like it!
Lessien Sharpwind - Well, thank you! I appreciate my reviewers all the more because there aren't so many of you. n.n (I don't know if it's the AU-ness, ambiguous descriptions or the foreign one-word name that makes people pass this story over, but oh well!) Hope you stick around for the final chapters!
Rebecca The Animorph - Congrats and thank you for being my 100th review! n.n Hope you'll get to see this chapter eventually!
Also, Hathors-Favorite, tennis turtle, Anomaly25, phoenix wanderer and chocolatemercury, thanks for your comments, you really know how to get a girl motivated! My thanks as well to those of you who've got this story on your Alerts or Favourites list, and the silent readers (my Stats page indicates a bunch of you, or maybe everyone's just reloading a lot XD), and those of you just joining us who managed to read all thirty thousand words of this monster at once. (That's pretty crazy to think about, considering that I couldn't finish NaNoWriMo...)
Hopefully I won't have to cut this chapter short; I have a Poetry exam tomorrow, and need to shower and all that...pfft. Enjoy, guys!
Estrelas
Chapter 10
by Shimegami-chan
"Danny..." Sam trailed off, uncertain what to say.
"You see? He admits it!" Penelope crowed, pulling the girl back a few steps. "This spook's just revealed his true nature, Samantha; you're an object to him. A possession that helps him pretend he's human! How long have you been seeing him? Hasn't he always made you confused like this?"
Sam thought back to her first moments with Danny, her angry confrontation as she'd demanded he leave the house. The way he'd known all the right things to say when she'd run up there crying, and then told her things about himself, about his life...and made her feel sorry for him. She had genuinely felt sorry for him! Thinking about how he felt had nearly put her on the verge of tears so many times! She wanted to be angry...but there was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. I trusted him... "I...I guess he has..."
"Sam," Danny said desperately, "I'm not the one who confused you. I'm not the one who made you cry, please remember! You said that you understood me...why are you taking the word of someone who knows nothing about you, over a friend?"
The girl opened her mouth to answer, but found she didn't know what to say. That was true too, wasn't it? It was Penelope that had told her those terrible things her mother said, Penelope who accused her of being violent...Penelope who condescendingly told her what she wanted. Not Danny. Danny was the only who understood me. And I thought I understood him. But she couldn't put the words out of her mind...
"You filthy soul vampire," the therapist hissed, keeping one hand tight on Sam's shoulder as she dialled 911 with the other. Danny darted forward to grab the phone, but Sam screamed angrily as he approached, and the ghost halted in mid-flight. Penelope smirked at him and then turned her attention to her call.
Danny looked as though he was going to try and reason with Sam again, locking eyes with her wearing the most pained expression she had ever seen on his face. The green ghost made his move first, though, transforming into a giant, slavering jungle cat. "Come on, kid, unless you're scared."
"We haven't been introduced," Danny snarled, focusing his attention on the shapeshifter.
"Oh, we have," it replied in a smooth male voice. "But fortunately for me, you don't seem to recall it."
Danny rolled his eyes. "I'm so glad my problems are so convenient for every--oof!" The cat leapt forward with claws extended and slammed right into Danny's chest, sending him flying backwards into the ground. Before the phantom had a chance to retaliate or even get up, the shapeshifter was upon him, taking swipes at his face that Danny narrowly avoided by turning intangible and sinking into the ground. It was up in a predatory position with haunches raised and a malevolent grin before Danny reappeared at the tree line, looking furious and scared. "Okay, seriously, what did I ever do to you?"
The cat replied in singsong while prowling slowly closer. "Well, you're only Public Ghost Enemy Number One. It's the duty of us peacekeeping ghosts to stop you from causing any more trouble."
"Me? When was the last time I caused trouble?"
"My goodness, Phantom, you really have lost it haven't you?" Penelope was proving narration from the sidelines that caused Sam's expression to become more and more horrified with each word. "There was the time you attacked the school, the time you kidnapped the mayor, the time you brought the Ghost King to prey on the city, the time you unleashed the Halloween Demon and killed all those children...oh yes, and of course Spirit Week, when you tried to annihilate Jasmine Fenton. I wonder did Samantha look up anything on you? Or did she not know you were Inviso-Bill?"
Thanks to the book, though, Sam had read plenty on Inviso-Bill, including some of the events that Penelope had just described. And now that she thought about it...while she hadn't read any article that described the ghost in detail, she remembered that he was often referred to as the "ghost kid," and allegedly wore white and black.
"Are you kidding? Even I didn't know I was Inviso-Bill!" Danny hissed in reply, but the expression on his face betrayed his own shock.
Maybe he really didn't know, Sam told herself. But if it's true, then...
How could she have gotten herself into this?
Danny had to turn his attention back to the fight when the shapeshifter ghost came at him again, claws flying. Instinctively he fired an ecto-blast at it, which went wide and burned a smoking hole into the grass about a metre to the left of Sam and Penelope. The therapist shrieked, but Sam stood perfectly still, hardly even noticing the collateral damage the two spirits were inflicting on the library's garden.
"Sam!" Danny cried, unable to take his eyes off the enormous cat to look at her. "You have to run! Get away from here before you get hurt!"
Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. Despite all logic, she still cared for Danny and wasn't willing to give up on him just yet. "What about you?"
"I'll find you!" he yelled. "Just run!"
"No, Samantha!" Penelope said angrily, grabbing her by the wrist. "Stay here!"
The Goth girl stared at her incredulously. "Why? We're both in danger of getting hit! We have to go!"
"I want to watch this filthy ghost meet his end," Penelope replied with a sadistic smirk.
"No!" Sam hissed, rounding on her. "I won't let this happen to Danny! I'm going to help him find out the truth, and he's going to cross over peacefully!"
"Don't make me laugh, girl!" the therapist cried. "Peacefully? Didn't you hear what I told you? This ghost is too far gone to be helped now! He's going to be taken by the Hunters, and then he's going to be destroyed, molecule by molecule if necessary!"
Sam looked at her with horror and wrenched her wrist free from the woman's grip. "That's heartless!"
"No less that he deserves!" she spat.
"Sam! Listen to me!" Danny yelled, taking his eyes off the cat for a few precious seconds. "This woman knows everything about me. It sounds terrible to say, but maybe...this is what I deserve."
"What?"
At Sam's outburst, the shapeshifter ghost stopped his attack in midair, hesitating. Danny took advantage of the moment to look at her with a hard frown. "She might be right, Sam! Your book says I'm some kind of monster!"
"But that doesn't mean you can't be helped!" Sam said desperately, her stomach turning to ice. "You could still cross over! We could still find out what's keeping you here!"
"You're what's keeping me here," he told her, so softly that she had to strain to hear it in the absolutely silent air. Sam's mouth went dry. "I'm not crossing over, because I want to be here, with you. So go, before you get hurt! If I make it, I'll find you!"
Eyes wide, Sam nodded and fled.
"Samantha...!" Penelope watched the teenager run into the trees, but made no move to stop her, instead looking back to the scuffle between the ghosts. With shaking hands she withdrew a cigarette from her purse and lit it, then checked her makeup in a compact mirror. "I suppose it'll be just as well if I can be there when she finds out he's been destroyed."
Danny, meanwhile, was fighting for his afterlife again. The shapeshifter was incredibly powerful, or maybe the boy ghost was just very weak - it was hard for him to tell, for he didn't even have a recollection of the last time he'd fought with anyone, spirit or otherwise. He suffered blow after blow from the mammal's huge paws, until one lucky strike slashed open the front of his jumpsuit completely, and he began oozing green ectoplasm out of the wound. Penelope cackled maniacally.
Dimly Danny became aware of the sound of sirens in the distance; the authorities that were no doubt coming for him. The cat had stepped back to admire his handiwork. "My my, I must have gotten so much better than the last time I saw you, you weak little thing. Hope you're ready to meet the ghost hunters!"
Danny dropped to his knees on the grass, gasping without inhaling any oxygen, clutching one hand to the deep gash in his stomach. It was pain like he'd never felt before. His other fist kneaded deep grooves in the soft dirt beneath the grass. His ears were pounding. This is it...
"Well, how do you like that?" The cat sounded quite proud of itself; Danny could not raise his head to see its smirk. "The timing could not have been more perfect! Shall I leave you here to be picked up?"
"Go, Bertrand," Penelope commanded suddenly, stepping closer to the two in her red heels. "You'll be caught too. I'll make sure Danny stays here to meet his visitors."
"Fine."
Danny struggled to see through his white bangs, but when he lifted his head, the other ghost was gone and Penelope knelt over him with a malicious smile. "I never dreamed you were still alive - theoretically speaking, of course - little Danny. Then again, no one ever took credit for destroying you."
"Nngh," was all Danny could say, sweat dripping down his face.
"I must say, I was pretty shocked to find you hanging around with Samantha. The poor dear really is having a hard time thanks to you. Nobody wants to be friends with a criminal, after all."
"I don't--" Danny gasped, but that was all he could say.
"Don't remember? Yes, yes," the therapist tsked. "And you won't. It's better that way, dear boy, but if you'd just let me help you, I can take a way a bit of that depression for you, hmm?"
"What do you--?"
Suddenly she was tilting his chin up with her manicured fingers, and he was looking into her shining eyes, which were wide with excitement. "Oh yes, even better than I remember! Despair, Danny, and I'll enjoy it all the more knowing this is permanently the end of you!"
"I can't," he said, but trailed off. It felt as though all the energy was being sucked out of him. This woman...knew that other ghost, Bertrand? And knew him, Danny, from before? She had some kind of power, of that he was certain, for her face seemed to glow as she laughed, and all of his strength was simply draining out where she touched him. A ghost, he realized suddenly, Penelope's a ghost. I have to get away before...
The woman broke off eye contact and looked over her shoulder at the sound of slamming car doors. "Oh, the hunters are here for you, Danny, so I'll have to step away. Hate for any of my own secrets to be discovered by their equipment - it's nothing like it was ten years ago, you know."
He was so far gone that he could not understand her words; could not understand why she had let go of him, but suddenly the draining feeling stopped and he could concentrate on trying to keep all of his ectoplasm from spilling out onto the grass. His body was spasming, a curious feeling had started to settle into his stomach, and without conscious thought Danny knew he had to get away. Praying his legs would hold him long enough to push him skyward, he wrapped both hands around his abdomen and took to the air with a feral scream.
Penelope let out a string of curses, whirling on one heel and reaching for him, but even injured the spook could still fly at an incredible speed. The ghost hunters had arrived behind her, and were pointing and shouting at the distant figure of the ghost, who was still quite visible in the cloudless sky. They watched him with held breath until Phantom wobbled a few hundred metres away, halted in his flight, and then fell headfirst out of the sky and into the trees.
Sam was lost, and heartsick, and confused. She had run as long and hard as she could, gasping, not just away from the danger – no, once she had taken herself far enough out of the area that she must surely have been safe, she continued to run, as though physical distance might provide her with enough comfort zone to think things through.
She was still feeling the effects of Penelope's words, but now Danny's last declaration of friendship (or was it? Sam thought to herself) was also ringing in her ears. She wasn't entirely certain what to think. He hadn't denied being Inviso-Bill; in fact he'd admitted that it could very well be true. But knowledge of his past didn't erase the Danny she thought she'd known.
Sam leaned against a huge tree, grateful for its support. She felt weak-kneed and ill, and the only thing stopping her from passing directly out was the knowledge that if she fainted here, she was going to be even unhappier when she woke up. Her stomach churned frightfully.
In the distance – maybe not even thirty metres away – she could hear shouting, and much further was the sound of sirens, but no weapons. Did they have special guns for ghost-catching? Sam wondered. She wondered if she should hide. There seemed to be people tearing through the forest, yelling incomprehensible things in loud male voices, Her head spun.
Something was approaching, and Sam stumbled to her feet just in time to find an enormous ecto-gun levelled at her face. Her eyes widened. "Wha--?"
The man who bore it wore black armour, red goggles and an angry expression. "Don't move, or I'll shoot!"
Sam came to her senses, freezing where she was. "Who-who are you?"
"Amity Park Ghost Squad." He did not lower the gun. "Who are you?"
"S-Sam Manson," she replied, relaxing slightly. "I was running, there were ghosts fighting by the library."
He nodded with a frown, as though trying to make his expression less frightening for her sake, but failing by quite a bit. "Well, Miss Manson, the ghosts escaped into the forest, so I advise you get out of here. I'll escort you back. We don't want any civilians getting tangled up in this business."
"I'll take her," a boy said, stepping out of the trees behind Sam. "My house is nearby."
"You a friend of hers?" The man said gruffly, the tip of his gun jerking slightly.
"A neighbour," the boy said, drawing a surprised look from Sam, who was sure she'd never seen him before in her life. He had jet-black hair and azure eyes, and looked to be a couple of years younger than her. He was wearing a white t-shirt and oversized jeans. "Come on Sam, let's get back before those ghosts find us, okay?"
He snatched her hand and led her through the trees without a second look at the officer, and the man grunted and ran off in the opposite direction without another word. Sam, however, was more than a little angry that her much-needed thinking time had been interrupted by someone else who wanted to make the situation a little more complicated. "Okay, now, who are you?"
"Like I said - your neighbour. I need to talk to you, and what I'm going to say can't be said with that guy around."
"So talk," she sighed.
"Listen, I saw you with that ghost kid, this morning on the steps of the library." He swallowed noticeably. "Inviso-Bill. You're putting yourself in a dangerous situation by hanging around with him."
"I'd never have guessed," Sam said dryly, her reply punctuated by the scream of sirens from far away.
"I know you probably don't want advice from some kid you don't even know," the raven-haired boy said, his mouth a grim line. "But that ghost is trouble. Public Ghost Enemy Number One. If they haven't caught him yet, they soon will, and you don't want to be in the crossfire when they do."
"Why are you telling me this?" Sam asked, her stomach feeling as though it was filled with lead.
"Because." The boy didn't seem to want to meet her gaze. "That ghost ruined my life. My parents were ghost hunters…and he's been nothing but trouble for as long as I can remember. Everyone in my family suffered because my mom and dad dedicated their lives to destroying him."
"I'm sure he never meant to hurt you," Sam argued. "Right now, he doesn't remember anything that's happened."
"That's why I needed to warn you!" the boy said, locking eyes with her. "I was watching the fight by the library. That creepy spook has gotten his memory back, and now he's more dangerous than ever!"
"He got his memory back-?" Sam faltered, trying to take in this information. If that was true, and the things Penelope had said were true, then would the Danny she saw next be as cold-hearted and menacing as Inviso-Bill in Legends of Amity Park? Horror-struck, she regarded the other teen with growing dread. While she knew she shouldn't trust this boy, this kid that she didn't even know, he looked so concerned that she couldn't just brush him off. There was something familiar and true in his eyes – the colour reminded her of someone else's, but she couldn't quite place who. Something in his expression was desperate, and despite herself Sam began to feel doubt about her friend's innocence creeping into her mind. Too many things just don't add up.
And yet…Danny. She couldn't give up hope.
"Listen," the boy urged. "Please, you have to forget about him. I'm trying to save you from getting caught up in something terrible."
"I was already in the middle of it," Sam replied grimly. "And I know Danny won't hurt me."
"Not physically, no," the boy shook his head. "But he will hurt you emotionally."
"Very nice, very nice!" Both teens swivelled at the sound of someone clapping, slowly and deliberately, from the shadows. "You're doing my job for me! I'd wait around to see what happens, but I'd hate for you to use your trump card."
It was a ghost, Sam realized with shock, one like she'd never seen before. Like a living black hole, it was shaped like a jagged-edged human, with features that glowed malevolently in the dim light of the forest. A woman, she thought, with a familiar, sultry voice.
"Spectra," the boy said softly, moving to stand in front of Sam.
"You remembered my name! How touching. Kind of inconvenient that you weren't as dead as I thought, though." The black ghost scowled, her curved lips as red as blood. "I'm hoping to keep the girl around, so if you don't want to see her hurt, I'd advise you to back off."
"You're not taking her," he replied, voice low. "I'd sooner reveal myself then let you take her."
"And then what? You can't fight me." She laughed maliciously, squeezing her hands into fists. "How perfect is this? I could suck her dry right here, and pin the blame on you! Another one for the history books, hmm?"
"It's a shame that you don't know what I can do," he said mildly. Sam, bewildered, could only look on as Spectra and the raven-haired teen bantered. She had no idea what they were talking about, but was seriously considering making a break for it anyway when he glanced backward and whispered, "Be ready to run."
"What'll it be?" Spectra taunted.
Sam couldn't see his face, but the boy grinned widely and threw the ghost a salute. "I say, see ya!"
Then, turning, he grabbed Sam's hand and fled, ignoring her shocked cry. Behind them, Spectra screeched, outraged, and the Goth girl was just looking over her shoulder when a very disorienting feeling swept through her, that pounding, intense pressure all over that she had experienced via Danny's powers that morning. Intangibility. Before she could utter a word her feet were whisked off the ground and they were flying through the trees at an incredible speed, immune to both wind and the obstructions thrown in her vision by the forest. "Don't talk until we get out of here!" her companion cried,and already she could see the light growing bigger as they approached the forest edge on the opposite side from the library, an area with a huge lake and no immediate sign of civilization. Within a moment they shot through the tree line and skidded to a halt on the ground, solid again, without a chance to even breathe before the blue-eyed teen's lanky arms were dragging Sam back into the shade of an enormous boulder.
She sputtered, the last ten seconds a nightmarish blur. What was going on? This kid had been telling her to stay away from ghosts, but he was a ghost himself,but at the same time a boy, a ghost boy, she didn't understand—
And then: Danny's voice in her ear. "Well…that wasn't in the plan."
-to be continued...