A/N: Hey everyone...back with my latest chapter!
Well, before I start, I'll make a confession. I never really meant to show off a lot of things on my profile, but after Evilevergreen's review, I realize not telling may be just as bad, so here we go...
So...anyone ever catch on that I'm a male? Well, I've always thought that people could catch onto that (I mean, with my penname and my writing style with a somewhat lack of romance), but I guess no one decided to make that assumption. Believe me...I was laughing out loud and hard when I read that review, but then it also got me thinking. So yeah...I'll just get that out of the way and type it into my profile along with some other things.
So now that this is all sorted out, here's your next chapter.
Chapter 16 - Aid From Above
Sam, Tucker, and Jazz...if they could only see him now...
But then again, even Danny himself couldn't believe what was happening...
His once-great enemy, Valerie, was flying beside him into battle...while he was in ghost mode...
Sometime during their flight he even pinched himself to make sure he wasn't in a dream world...but this was real...he and Valerie were allies...flying after the ghost that had caused so much destruction within the past weeks.
"Just you wait, Spectra...you're going down!" he thought, feeling his fist clench. "This is for Tucker...for Sam...for Jazz..."
Then, looking over at his ally flying next to him, he also thought, "For Valerie..."
However, he had never counted for this odd occurrence. At the same time he looked at her was the same exact moment when she did the same thing. They were staring at each other in surprise for a few seconds before they returned smiles. That basically sealed everything...
But it would have lasted longer if something else didn't happen...
Blue smoke appeared as Danny's sense suddenly went off while they were flying over a meadow miles from the town.
Valerie watched the whole thing with a small look of wonderment on her face. "What's that?" she asked, curiously.
"It's my ghost sense," said Danny, coming to a sudden stop and looking around suspiciously. "It tells me that there's a ghost around...but the problem is that I can never pinpoint the exact location..."
"So she's around here somewhere?" Valerie asked a little nervously. "Right now?"
"Yes..." said Danny, his voice getting softer. "But we have to be careful now...she could be anyw - AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
An ectoplasmic blast from some unknown direction had hit him squarely in the chest and sent him flying.
"DANNY!" yelled Valerie, calling after him.
"VAL!" he cried back, getting further and further away from her.
Frantically, Valerie looked around to see if there was anyone nearby, but she could not see anyone or anything. Starting up her machine once again, she flew in the direction that Danny was sent.
She didn't like the resulting area - she soon found herself flying through a thick grove of trees, usually a nice quiet place during the day, but dark and ominous in the moonlight. What seemed to be just a cluster of trees were now shadowy branches and sharp twigs that resembled hands. Every single rustling of leaves only intensified her fears - it was spooky.
And it was hard work dodging through each and every one of them as she searched for him on her jet-sled. But the further she searched, she only seemed to find more trees.
After searching for about a minute in every possible place she could, Valerie still could not find him.
"DANNY!" she yelled out, close to panicking upon the condition of her friend. "WHERE ARE YOU?"
The sound of some faint noise was carried by the wind, but she didn't know what it was...
"Danny!" she yelled again, flying to find the location. "Are you OK? Where are you?"
And the noise returned - but this time it formed a meaning. A faint "I'm over here" came from an eastern direction of the small grove.
Flying over there, she finally spotted him sprawled against a tree, moaning.
"Danny!" she yelled again, flying down to his level. "Are you OK? You scared me..."
His green eyes opening slowly, he said softly, "Yes...I'm fine..." Valerie then reached over to help him up while he picked out a few pieces of rogue bark out of his hair.
"Then I'll make sure that you aren't!" yelled a different voice.
Danny's and Valerie's attention shifted to the source of the new voice, wherever it was...they could not locate it. They only saw pale moonlight and trees, the leaves dripping with fresh water.
But Danny knew who it was as he got to his feet once again. "Where are you?" he yelled, hoping an answer would come out of the open. "Show yourself, Spectra!"
"With pleasure!" yelled the same voice. But now the source of the voice became visible for both teenagers to see.
"Well, what do we have here?" asked Spectra in her human-like form, wearing the usual evil smile on her face. "Oh, the ghost kid and his new friend! How touching!"
Just the sight of the ghost gave the hunter girl a savage feeling. Valerie, angry about the earlier surprise attack on her friend, suddenly charged at the black specter with a charged ray gun, screaming out her frustrations in one long scream.
"NO! Valerie!" yelled Danny, trying to stop her, but it was too late.
"Oh, please..." sighed Spectra, simply blocking the gun blast with a shield. "You people and your anger...you just never seem to learn..."
The gun's ray bounced off the shield and sent it back towards Valerie. The ray hit her in the dead center of her chest, sending her crashing towards a tree trunk.
Valerie quickly recovered and flew after Spectra again in a rage. The ghost quickly stopped her in mid-flight and then knocked her back down at the same tree.
"VALERIE!" Danny cried. He went after the fallen hunter girl, but Spectra stood in his path before he could get there. She landed quietly on her feet as she then glanced over to the downed hunter, slightly chuckling.
"Inexperience..." she said, looking over at Valerie with a sickening grin. "It really does separate the true fighters from the weak..."
She looked back at Danny with the same hideous complexion.
The comment caused a triggering reaction in the half-ghost...Weak? Valerie?
"She is NOT weak!" he yelled, aiming and shooting a ray from his hand. The ectoplasmic blast sent Spectra flying, forcing her into a bush. "She might be a little ragged around the edges, but don't you dare say she's weak!"
Recovering, Spectra flew out and changed into her blackened appearance. Wrapping her tail around a surprised Danny's ankles, she swung him around once again and sent him flying out of the grove, high into the air. Flying after him, she took the chance to hit him again while he was careening through the air. Using her new-found speed from all the absorbed misery, she got in front of his trajectory.
Before Danny could respond, her fist connected with his jaw, and sending him back towards the earth, back into the small forest. He landed on his back on a dead laurel bush, tearing his suit and scattering its brown leaves everywhere.
His eyes opening slightly, he staggered back up, the unrelenting pain now increased. He tried looking around for his adversary, but she had unfortunately seen him first. She conjured up another blast from her hand, which struck into his back and forced him into another tree face first. He fell backwards, facing the sky. He couldn't get up.
And before he knew it, Spectra's face blocked his view of the sky. His instinct automatically put up his hand to charge a shot at her, but she held down on top of his wrist with her black hand, stopping him from doing so.
"You see, child?" she said menacingly. "Not even with your little friends can you defeat me! With all these powers I have, fighting you is about as easy as that Box Ghost!"
That remark was really hitting below the belt. Danny tried to blast her off with his free hand, but she sensed it and just held down on his other wrist.
"You're weak, Danny...just like your friend..." she said, now really trying to get into him.
"Don't listen to her!" he desperately thought, trying to push his growing misery down. "None of this is true!"
But she continued with the insults, her bright red eyes glowing so fiercely that he was forced to look directly into them, even if his eyes were closed. They simply pierced through the dark that they resembled two red orbs.
"You're worthless..." she said threateningly, but softly. "You're not powerful enough...you can never stop me..."
"GET OFF OF ME!" he yelled, struggling to free himself, and finding intangibility impossible.
"No..." she simply said. "I'm gonna stay right here until -"
"- until I force you off!" interrupted a voice.
Spectra looked up from her victim to see an ectoplasmic foam smack directly in her face and pin her towards a tree. Danny immediately got up from where he lay and quickly massaged his wrists.
"You OK, Danny?" yelled Valerie, running up to him with a gun in her hand.
"I've been better," he said, truthfully. "But thanks a lot for that save..."
"Don't mention it," she said, patting her gun. "Now c'mon...I want to tear that ghost apart!"
Helping him up, she asked, "Which way did she go?"
He was about to shrug, until a large explosion caught their attention, causing them to fly in that direction. Spectra had just burst free from her temporary prison.
Reaching the area in almost a heartbeat, they could see the remains of the tree that Spectra had just destroyed to free herself from.
"YOU!" screamed the ghost, pointing her finger directly at Valerie. "How dare you interrupt me! You'll be the FIRST one!" She flew towards the girl with outstretched hands.
Valerie, wise to Spectra's ways, quickly dodged Spectra on her jet-sled. Looping upside down in the air, she got behind the specter and shot her back with some ray blasts from her sled, smacking her towards Danny.
Danny took the opportunity to find an attack of his own, as he took Spectra by the tail and shocked the dazed ghost with a ghost stinger. After much electricity, he decided to give her a taste of her own medicine. While keeping hold of the ghost, he swung Spectra around as she did before to him, and sent her flying back towards Valerie.
Valerie responded to the pitch by taking out her gun.
But before she conjured up a shot, Valerie yelled out, "DANNY! GET AHEAD OF HER!"
"Since when was she the boss of me?" he thought. But he knew what the purpose was, anyway, so he obeyed. At the same time, he was glad that the partnership was working.
The rays hit Spectra in the back, sending her flying. But she didn't fly far - once Danny got ahead of her, he gave Spectra another dose of her own medicine by punching her in the face, back towards Valerie, creating a mini tennis match.
"Here's inexperience!" yelled the ghost hunter before returning the volley back to a waiting Danny. She threw another bomb at the ghost, making Spectra fly into the other direction.
Danny never got the chance to hit her again, because soon the black specter had finally snapped out of it and crouched in mid-air. Spinning into a small sphere, and transforming back into her human-like form, she set her sights back on Danny.
She surprised him once again as she then blasted him out of the air, sending him spiraling down towards another bush.
"GYAH!" he yelled, getting forced back down.
He landed with another crash that sent dead leaves everywhere, some of them cutting into his suit again and scratching his face. When he opened his eyes, he tried to get up, but then some foot stepped on top of him. A few seconds later he found himself staring into Spectra's glowing eyes once again.
But there was something different...those eyes...they were a heck of a lot brighter...and her face...
Not only was it glowing green, but there was a look of ferocity on her face that he could never imagine...it was hard to believe that this ghost once smiled...just the look of expression on her face made him cringe...
"That's it!" she boomed. "You stupid little...that's it! I'm not playing anymore!"
A cold sweat formed on his face as he listened to the way she spoke. Spectra's voice was so low that it was unrecognizable - she didn't even sound female...
"DANNY!" cried Valerie. She raced towards the area on her sled as fast as she could.
But regrettably, Spectra knew she was coming. Turning around, a thin, red ray came out of Spectra's finger, lancing into Valerie. Her jet-sled continued flying out from under her feet, but Valerie remained situated in the air. The ghost hunter girl tried moving, but soon she came upon the unbearable conclusion that she was paralyzed.
"I'll deal with you later!" yelled Spectra. Then her viewpoint turned back onto Danny, to whom she now formed an evil grin to.
"But as for you...you've meddled long enough...I was just planning on absorbing the misery off you two, but by the time I'm finished with you...you'll be begging for me to only do that!"
Danny tried to get free, reaching for the Fenton thermos, but Spectra just hit him with another ray, stopping his movements. The thermos deflected off a tree and rolled right underneath Valerie, where she could not reach it.
Once again, that searing pain he had felt when he had encountered her earlier in the cafeteria had returned. But as he was already injured, it just felt a lot worse - no word could describe it.
"You really are worthless..." said Spectra, her words now seething into his brain. "You're weak..."
"No!" he kept screaming. "I'm not giving in..."
"You brought someone here...and now you'll be the fault of her screams and suffering..."
"SHUT UP!" he screamed. "GO AWAY!"
"Yes...you'll be responsible...just like Sam and Jazz..."
And with the introduction of those two names, Danny started panicking. "Oh God...please...don't mention that..."
"Yes...Sam and Jazz..." she said louder. "You will fail...just like you failed them..."
Failure...
He had always hated that word...so demeaning it was to his reputation...which was already lowered...
And with those thoughts, the barrier vanished, allowing his misery to surface. Spectra inhaled the green mist with an almost savage pleasure.
"Ahhh...thank you...I needed that..." she said, mockingly. She did not look down at the teen, who had his eyes closed, but there were tears streaming out of them.
After she had inhaled the last of the vapors, she looked down on him.
"Now it's time..." said Spectra. "And don't worry...I'll make this as quick as possible..."
"DANNY!" yelled Valerie. "NO!"
Danny heard her, but he knew that she could not help him...it was pointless...
And Spectra heard her, too. "How sad...isn't it..." she said, looking over at Valerie. "...knowing that help is less than twenty feet away...but nothing can be done..."
The half-ghost only stared back at her...only able to look back at Valerie, saying "I'm sorry" with his eyes...
Spectra turned back her attention to Danny. "Any last requests?" she asked.
When had no answer, she said, "Well then...good riddance...time to say goodbye, Danny!"
Déjà-vu from dreams attacked Danny once again as he watched her movements.
He watched as Spectra raised her arms. Out of the sky came green-colored lightning...condensing into a green sphere of ectoplasmic light...its radiance was unbelievable...
But everything else around him was turning black...
The sphere was getting bigger just as Spectra herself got fainter in his clouded vision...soon he was only able to see her outline...
He tried to move...but once again, he couldn't do anything...this was seriously the end...he closed his eyes, because the light was too bright...
He was losing so much power that it felt like something was tearing him apart...his last view was watching himself as was stripped of his ghost mode and returning back to his human state...little sparks of light flying everywhere...
And Spectra started laughing...actually it sounded more like she was screaming in delight because she was finally defeating him...but it was still nothing he wanted to listen to...
But then for some strange reason, Spectra's foot lifted off of his chest...
And even stranger...she had stopped conjuring up the green light...it had disappeared...
"Huh?" he thought. Danny opened his eyes.
Those little sparks of light were everywhere...
...and Spectra wasn't laughing...she really was screaming in pain...
"AHHHH!" she wailed. "What the heck is this?"
Danny's head slowly lifted up from the ground...these weren't just little ectoplasmic sparks flying through the air...
And as he slowly looked around, he saw the answer...
A figure behind Spectra was dressed in a metallic suit...the direction that the sparks were coming from...
It was the Fenton Peeler...
That was the reason he and Spectra were getting affected...it was pointed in the same area...
But who...?
"Valerie?" he first thought. But then it had to be...who else could it have been? She must have broken out of her paralysis...
Meanwhile, he was watching the specter's fate. Her young form vanished as more and more layers of youth seemed to peel right off of her, each layer emitting a green smoke that filled the air...and Spectra was getting older and older...
"YAHHHHHHHH!" she continued screaming, as the Fenton Peeler continued ripping her apart. "STOP IT! I'm losing it all! NO!"
But the pleading fell on deaf ears, as the last layers of youth finally fell off Spectra's body and onto the ground, where the final emissions of green misery smoke came out of the layer and vanished into thin air.
Spectra was old once again.
The ghost looked at her appearance and started screaming at her own hideousness.
"NO! My youth!" she yelled. Her hair was now greyish-white, her face was wrinkled beyond belief, and her clothes, designed for a younger woman, were sagging on her body.
"Who are you? Where are you? Who did this?" she screamed out. Instinctively, she looked behind her, and suddenly gasped. "YOU? But...no...that's impossible! You can't be...!"
Spectra started going after whoever that person was, but Danny quickly turned ghost and stopped her by blasting her with a ghost ray. Spectra fell to the ground, steaming.
"You're not going anywhere!" he yelled, his fist shaking with fury.
"DANNY!" yelled a voice from an unknown direction. He recognized it to be Valerie's...but he was so disoriented that he didn't have any idea where it was coming from.
But with the yelling came the Fenton thermos...she must have thrown it in his direction...
He caught it and swiftly opened it, pointing it at the fallen Spectra.
"Time for you to say goodbye!" he yelled, activating it.
Slowly lifting her head, the specter saw the capturing blue and white light...there was nothing she could do stop it as the rays took hold of her...she screamed as she was getting pulled into her prison.
But not before saying, "You may have beaten me, Danny...but take a look at your savior! It's you who's lost! You hear me? LOST!"
Then, with a final scream, Spectra disappeared into the thermos, which Danny quickly capped.
He could not believe it...it was over...finally over...
He wanted to be happy, but he also felt sadness...everything should not have gotten this far out of control...especially during Christmas...
Exhaustion took over his body as he slumped down against a tree, basically collapsing onto its wet trunk.
Valerie ran over to the fallen teen. "Danny...are you all right?"
Though he was tired, he found a way to stand back up again and give her a reassuring smile that he was fine. Valerie responded by giving him another death hug.
"We did it Danny..." she said, happy that it was all over. "We did it...Spectra's gone!"
"Yes..." he wanted to say, but soon found out that the credit could not have been all on his own.
Slowly pulled away, he looked back at the ghost hunter and said, "No...I couldn't have done it without your help...if you haven't done all that stuff with the Fenton Peeler...I would have been a goner...it's you I have to thank..."
He tried going back towards her to hug her again, but got in turn a reaction from her. Valerie gave him a strange look that wore the look of "What the heck are you talking about?" all over it.
"What?" she asked, confirming his suspicions. "Fenton Peeler? I'm lost..."
"Wasn't that you?" he asked, trying to make sense of things. "Spectra can't just grow that old within a span of a few seconds...the Fenton Peeler does something like that."
But she continued with the same strange expression. "Danny...I'm sorry, but...I have no idea what you are talking about..."
Danny was aghast. If she didn't do it, then who...?
His thoughts were stopped short, however, as he suddenly felt a cold chill run down his spine...
And Valerie, looking behind him, slowly gasped and pointed a shaking finger at something behind him...
"Danny..." she said, once again white with fear. "L-look behind you!"
Following his instincts, Danny did just that...
...and was met with one of the greatest shocks of his life...he never expected any point of reality come this far...
Completely foreshadowed by dreams of the weeks in the past, a tall, skinny, black figure in a black long coat stood before him with black gloves. Danny took a quick second to examine the figure's left hand, with undoubtedly held the device that he was speaking of...
Was he dreaming?
"Who...?" he began. "What...who are you?"
"I have a feeling you know..." said the figure.
"That voice..." he thought. The voice was muffled through all of that black clothing...but he could sense something oddly familiar about it...but it couldn't be...was he really that accurate?
"But here..." said the figure, taking off the veil. "Why don't I just give you the answer right now?"
Danny nearly stumbled as he looked into her face...it was true...
"J-Jazz?" he softly asked, almost daring to wonder if she was just a figment of his imagination. "Is that you?"
But it was a pretty inane thing to ask...there was no one that looked like her...but there was something different...
Her eyes...they seemed to be swollen...she looked really tired, as if she had just woken up from sleep that had lasted a year...
"How's my little brother doing?" she asked almost sweetly, smiling back at him. But that same look of almost disparate feature around the eyes remained. "Looks like I came at the perfect time..."
And Danny fell to the ground. This couldn't be happening...
"Jazz..." he asked softly, almost in a soft murmur. "What are you doing here?"
"Well..." she said, looking over at ghost hunter behind him, who was wearing a shocked face. "...I can see quite well that you have now patched things up with Valerie..." She continued smiling, as she then came back saying, "I knew you could do it..."
"But..." he continued. "...what...are you doing here?"
"I came to help you..." she said plainly. "I always said that I would..."
Danny remembered the statement his sister had said to him those weeks ago...the words coming back to him...clear as daylight...
But then there was a little part of it that she had also mentioned...but at the same time fearing...
"Jazz..." he said, slowly getting up from the ground. "I...can't...I can't..."
He didn't even know what he was saying...only one thing was on his mind...he had the greatest desire to tell her...
...then what the heck was holding him back!
"Jazz!" he suddenly screamed, running up to her and preparing to give her a hug.
But as he was running towards her, Jazz's expression of a smile suddenly turned back into a frown...and her head slacked down as her chin slowly pointed towards her chest...
Danny was wondering why...until something happened that gave him an even bigger shock...
While he was running, his foot caught the side of a rock and he tripped over it. While he was falling in mid-air, Jazz was in his direct path while he was doing so. And Jazz's head was still down, not looking at him. There was no time to tell her to get out of the way, but as the next instance happened, he realized that it would have been completely useless.
Instead of a collision, Danny had phased right through his sister and landed on the grass behind her.
And throughout the whole span of seconds, she hadn't moved...nor had he gone intangible...
His face seemed to collide with the ground in slow motion as a wave of different emotions came over him...after hitting the ground, he lay there for a few seconds, taking in all of the events. He tried to continue clinging onto that hope, but then came to the painful and bitter conclusion as realized that he was lying upon false grounds.
Danny didn't want to get up...he just wanted to lay there...curl up, and let this nightmare pass. He fought them bitterly, but he found that he could no longer hold them back. The tears flowed out of his eyes...
Then looking back at his sister, he saw that she still hadn't moved...she was still in the same position.
Remaining stationary, she said softly, "I'm sorry..."
"No..." he said, the rain falling from his cheeks. "I won't believe it! No! You're not...you can't be!"
"I'm sorry..." she just said again.
"Jazz, no...please..."
But Jazz didn't say another word. Continuing to wear the same expression on her face, she just slowly backed away from him, walking backwards into an open field away from the grove of trees. The rain seemed to be falling right through her, and the luminescence of the moon shone such that it seemed like she was disappearing into it...
Danny forced himself off the ground and ran towards her in a mad dash, hoping to stop her, but soon saw that he was running toward nothing.
Panting heavily, Danny felt many forms of shock, sorrow, panic, and pain leap through him at the same time as he just stood there where his sister had been...
He fell to the ground again, weighed down by all the emotions he held...was this really happening?
This had to be some sort of trick...
And Valerie slowly walked behind him, as she crossed over to him.
"Danny..." she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "I'm sorry..."
He wasn't listening...he desperately was trying to believe one thing, as his hands went towards his head...
"Danny?" asked Valerie, trying to speak to him. "Danny?"
He didn't listen to her questions. "This isn't happening..." he said. "I'll wake up...this isn't happening..."
Valerie tried her best to find a way to tell him, but unfortunately, she couldn't find any single word of doing so. But without warning, Danny had suddenly jumped to his feet.
"Danny?" asked Valerie, a bit stunned. "What are you doing?"
He didn't answer her. "This isn't happening..." he muttered to himself again. "This isn't happening..."
And, without warning, he set himself in position, and flew off before Valerie had a chance to work out everything that he said.
"DANNY!" yelled Valerie, kick starting up her jet-sled and flying after him. "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"
She could only hope he wasn't doing anything stupid...
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In a blind rush of tears and adrenaline, Danny continued flying toward his destination. Several times during the way he met several trees and bushes that lay in his path, but nothing was deterring him.
He had to get to the hospital...
When it was in his sights, he phased right through the building, remembering to stay invisible because the hospital was keeping a watch over him...
But that was when his worst dreams were confirmed...a woman's voice on speakerphone echoed throughout the halls of the hospital...
"Code blue...code blue...patient on fifth floor, room 520...cardiac arrest...
Danny's own heart was almost about to go into cardiac arrest itself...
For Room 520...that...that was Sam and Jazz's room...
A/N: Review, please...but...please don't kill me...
WARNING - The following disclaimer is a game spoiler!
Disclaimer: The scene with Danny passing through Jazz is based a bit around the ending of Final Fantasy X, which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest RPGs ever. Putting this up top might have spoiled things...