Hello there. Some of you have asked me what happened to Cujo. The answer is, he's still there, he's just in his puppy form, because most of the rooms in the tower aren't big enough for him to be big. Envision him standing by or being held by Ellie. He hasn't really been mentioned much, because these chapters are sort of dialog/introspection based, and, well, he's a dog.
... Also I might have forgotten him just a leeetle bit. He is in this chapter, though, which I wrote a week ago! So I didn't forget him completely! Promise!
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Chapter 125:
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"This next floor," said Vlad, "changes the era one was born in, whilst keeping the other details of your life as similar as possible." He put one foot on the first stair and looked back.
He was somewhat peeved that none of the other ghosts were explaining the floors, forcing all the responsibility on him. He was somewhat more aggrieved that Daniel and Danielle had managed to amass such a following of ghosts with essentially no effort whatsoever. Daniel had said only a few, largely delirious, sentences to this latest group, and most of those were while he was being healed. Danielle, being more conscious, had said more, but nothing that should carry such weight with so many ghosts.
It couldn't just be the truce motivating them. Not all of them.
It was infuriating. Even with all his power and money, Vlad couldn't reliably get ghosts to work for him. Yes, he had his minions, he had his employees, but they had taken time, guile, planning, payments. To have Daniel accomplish this with nothing... And it wasn't the first time, either. Vlad could recall a number of circumstances where Daniel recruited enemies to his cause. Sometimes, and here Vlad's eyes flicked to Danielle, converting them to his side outright.
He paused before the final step to the next floor. He didn't like this floor. This floor could be tricky. It was always different. The other floors were only sometimes different. They chose from the nearest possible universe, and that tended to be fairly stable. On the other hand, that floor seemed to be on a randomizer. It was completely unpredictable.
Vlad had been a prince, a vizier, a councilman, a village elder, a scientist in the Great War, a magician, a scribe, even a man from the future whose passing thoughts had revealed the secrets of accelerating the aging of clones... So many things. So many remarkable things. None of them particularly satisfying. None of them things that he had properly prepared for. Although, he had to say, he had been unprepared for this entire journey. He was often unprepared for things that had to do with Daniel. He took the last step.
Without knowing why, he hissed, and then, as planned, took stock of who and when he was.
Vladimir Vasiliovitch Pavlov, born in the year 1920 in the proud USSR. Scientist. Spy. Defector to the US. The year was 1965.
Except it wasn't. Not if he thought it was.
He took a few steps into the room, then turned, watching the others come up the steps and change. He dismissed Daniel's classmates with hardly a second glance. A few wore modern, or even somewhat futuristic garb. The large boys that bullied Daniel acquired some kind of armor. One of the girls wore something he would identify as Native American. Miss Grey was in Egyptian robes. The annoying blonde girl was dressed in early American colonial gear. Most of the others looked much like they had before, clad in borrowed Greek clothing of various eras. It would be lovely to figure out how to communicate with everyone. Of course, there was no guarantee that the others spoke English, Russian, or any of the handful of other languages that Vlad spoke.
The ghosts, too, rippled and changed. The more human ones changed in much the same way as the students. The less human ones underwent alterations that were more difficult to interpret.
In any case, Vlad didn't really care. All of them were, ultimately, irrelevant when compared to Daniel and Danielle. The changes that the two of them had undergone thus far had been enlightening, fascinating. He could only speculate as to what might be revealed on later floors, and he wished both that they had more time and that Daniel was more conscious, so as to give Vlad more information.
The ghost carrying Daniel flew the last few inches up over the end of the stairs.
The ghost's numerous eyes changed shape slightly, the vapor that shrouded its form grew darker, grayer in hue. It also grew another pair of arms. Daniel- The change Daniel suffered did not, at first, seem impressive. He was still dressed in a Greek nightgown, although it looked to be of a slightly different cut than before.
But there were subtle differences. The cut of his hair, for one. The ring on his finger for another. There was a seal on it. Vlad couldn't place it, but it looked familiar. Something ghostly, perhaps? Or, no, now that he looked more closely, it was a modified FentonWorks logo. Vlad rolled his eyes. Of course. Put Jack in the middle ages and he still managed to put that logo on everything.
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Danny wasn't sure what woke him up, but something did. Probably changing floors and having his memory rewritten again. Probably. He shifted slightly in the arms of the cloud ghost, whose name, Danny had finally gathered, was Iewumitwe. The name didn't mean anything, so far as Danny could determine, but it was good to know.
It wouldn't do to offend anyone. Ghosts sometimes took offence more easily than nobles, not that Danny dealt with them very much. Unless he counted Vlad. And his family. Sometimes he forgot to count his family.
He groaned. The ghosts around him hummed back, encouragingly, questions hidden in the notes. Ghost languages could be weird.
He forced his eyes open. "What's happening?" he asked, voice hoarse.
"We're on a new floor," said Ellie. She's acquired an odd accent. Not anything Danny couldn't hear through, but enough to throw him off a little.
"Ah," said Danny. He'd already guessed that, though. He freed an arm to rub an eye.
"How is your ankle feeling?" asked Prunella.
"Not well." He twitched it automatically, and instantly regretted it. Prunella had reached inside and put all the bones and fragments back in place, so the ankle didn't quite feel like there was a knife stuck through it anymore, but it wasn't happy. Still, he had been half expecting to lose the leg, or to have it heal into a club. He had seen something like that happen to a man his mother and father had treated.
Being the child of two science-obsessed minor nobles could be such 'fun' sometimes. Although, he should remember that it could be fun in the normal way as well.
He looked up at Prunella, and frowned. She was wearing something skintight and blue, her green hair slicked back. It wasn't what she had been wearing before, and it was certainly outlandish, something that would get her tossed in gaol back home, but compared to other ghosts... He shook his head, making a mental note not to stare.
Then he took a look around, checking on his... His relationship to the other young humans in the room momentarily slipped through his mind. Fellow villagers?
He blinked, hard, and the memories settled down into something manageable. Fellow villagers and neighbours. Yes.
Prunella was saying something. His head had been completely in the clouds while she said it.
"Can you repeat that, please?"
"Is there anything else bothering you? Any heat, or ache? Confusion?"
He settled back into Iewumitwe's many arms. "I have a headache, I suppose."
"I see," said Prunella, reaching out to touch Danny's forehead. Most of the pain vanished, leaving behind a gentle fuzziness.
Danny sighed.
"Daniel," said Vlad. His eastern accent was much more pronounced than it usually was.
"Mh?"
"Tell us, what era do you hail from?"
Was that what this floor did? Well, Vlad had lost his mind if he thought Danny would give him any more information than was strictly necessary. Especially since he apparently wanted to know so badly. Danny hadn't forgotten how Vlad had tried to get the Fentons convicted of witchcraft in an attempt to take over their estate. Among other, less forgivable things.
Danny smiled vaguely in Vlad's direction. "Hm?" he asked, as politely as possible. "Oh. My eyes aren't focusing." They weren't, as it turned out. "Is that bad?" He heard a whine. "Is that Cujo?"
"It's just a side effect," said Prunella.
At the same time, Ellie whispered, "Is he going to be alright?"
"I can hear you," said Danny, before sticking his tongue out at the simulacra. It was a serious breach in etiquette that Jazz would have scolded him for, but, considering the current circumstances, Danny thought he could be forgiven.
"Nothing wrong with your ears, then. Sleep. You'll heal faster."
Easier said than done. Everyone had started talking in the background, and the number of different languages being spoken was giving him a headache.
Iewumitwe held him closer. Danny made an involuntary noise of discomfort in his throat. He would much prefer someone else to carry him. He didn't know this ghost. But none of the people he would have liked carrying him (his parents, Clockwork, Frostbite, most of the Far Frozen, a few others) were available. If they were, this whole situation would never have happened.
If he thought about it, he would have been alright with Father Lancer carrying him, but he couldn't ask the old priest to do that. Danny might have been lighter than most young men his age, thanks to his slightly inhuman nature, but he still weighed something.
Then Iewumitwe jerked sideways, and Danny gasped at the sudden acceleration. The others shouted. Were they under attack again? He would have thought that they had gone through all of the brash truce-breakers, with the more intelligent assassins lying in wait outside.
He opened his eyes, trying to get a glimpse of what was happening...
… And realized that he was hurtling towards a door.
What?
What was Iewumitwe doing?
That question was partially answered when the ghost wrenched open the door, and dove outside. Outside the Tower. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Not good. He had known he shouldn't just be all happy-go-lucky and trust total strangers. Why hadn't he considered the possibility that at least one of the so-helpful ghosts could be just biding their time, waiting for an opportunity to snatch him and run off?
He struggled. Between Iewumitwe's many arms and Danny's less than healthy state, this was largely ineffectual. But then another ghost- was that Aragon's former executioner?- dove at them, doubtless to try and claim Danny for himself, and Iewumitwe just sort of... absorbed Danny, pushing him into his cloudy body.
It was something like being submerged in murky water and caught in a storm. Everything was muffled, and Danny could barely see his shoulders. There was a fight going on out there, he could tell between the jerky movements and thunder-like sounds.
Danny resumed his struggles, now more urgent. There was no air inside Iewumitwe. Not really. The ghost, like most of Danny's acquaintance, was made of ectoplasm. Danny was currently in human form. His human form could 'survive' without breathing. Sort of. But that 'survival' included descending into a state of pained, semi-conscious, helpless, panic. That would spell death under his current circumstances.
One of Iewumitwe's eyes drifted over to him, staring intensely. In a fit of inspiration, Danny seized it in one hand, and bit it. Iewumitwe was apparently not expecting Danny to resort to cannibalism, and dropped Danny right out of his body.
Danny sucked in a deep breath of air as he tumbled head over heels through the air, before being able to stabilized himself on his downwards path with the ease of long practice. Only then could he to take in his surroundings. Wow, that was a lot of people coming right at him. Where was the Tower? There! He had to fall towards that. He had to get back to the, admittedly dubious, safety of the truce.
He wrenched himself mentally sideways, and redirected himself again to avoid an attack. Thus distracted, his gravity realigned itself with that of the Tower, and he was going in the wrong direction again. Falling was not the best way to travel, not during a fight, not when his brain was too fuzzy to focus.
An ectoblast winged him, and he spun, shoulder burning. With difficulty, he righted himself again, and zoomed back towards the Tower. He hadn't the slightest idea which door he'd come out of.
Then a door burst open, and Ellie flew out, Cujo under one arm. She threw the small dog into the air. Wow. Danny should see if there were any ghost baseball teams out there. Even for someone with super strength, that was quite a pitch.
"Sic those sickos, Cujo!"
Then again, Cujo was a ghost. He could have just been flying.
Speaking of flying, Ellie was doing that towards him. That was good. Less good was that people were attacking her now. But here was Vlad, and a bunch of the other ghosts. His core twinged with protectiveness. They were going to get hurt. But... They could be like Iewumitwe. They could be bounty hunters just waiting to strike. It hurt. IT HURT.
Danny curled inward in a vain attempt to protect his core, losing focus again, and fell.
