Hello there and happy Friday! Guess what it also is? Mortified's birthday! I started posting Mortified one year ago today. Thank you all for sticking with me and this story over the past year, despite updates slowing down.
SPEAKING OF UPDATES, between the phic phight in April, Dannymay, and Phanniemay, I have completely murdered my buffer, and also my creativity. I have only a few hundred more words of Mortified written than you see here. Therefore it is possible, but unlikely, that I will have to skip next week. I try to update consistently, so I want you guys to know.
Thank you for reading and reviewing! I'm sorry I don't have responses this week.
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Chapter 135:
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Ellie flexed Danny's foot again. It felt a lot better, now. Then again, Ellie was only feeling a fraction of what Danny would feel if he was conscious.
The girls and Prunella had come back, the girls in a bad mood. They hadn't found much food on this floor. Ellie could understand that. She'd gone hungry before, while traveling on Earth.
The others hadn't come up from the other floor. It was getting to the point where Ellie was becoming anxious, and that, in turn, was affecting Danny. Ellie sighed.
"Okay," she announced. "I think we've waited long enough. Time for me to be me, and Danny to be Danny."
Prunella raised her eyebrows. "You'll turn around and come back as soon as you step down there."
"Nah, I think my Obsession will override that," said Ellie. She blinked as Danny stirred under her consciousness. "Okay." She stretched, popping Danny's shoulder blades. "Here we go." She began to ease herself out of Danny's body, only to be snapped back in. She blinked Danny's eyes. "Oops."
"Are you stuck like your brother supposedly was?" asked Hannah.
"No," said Ellie, defensive. "I'm not stuck."
She closed her- Danny's- eyes, and directed her attention inward. What was wrong? Why was she stuck? Because, yeah, she was stuck. Crap. This hadn't happened before.
Strand... silver... There was a series of images. Strings, wrapped around each other, tangled roots.
Oh. Hey, Danny. What's up?
Silver cord.
What?
Silver cord. Strands. Strand communication. Uh.
How do you even make that noise in your head?
Give me a break. Basically, ghostly nerves. Had a chance to see mine, but Mom and Dad talk about them sometimes.
Okay. So?
So, I think, he showed Ellie a picture of tangled strings.
You think our wires are getting crossed?
Maybe? Maybe that's why overshadowing me is weird. Normal humans don't have silver cord, or anything like that. Danny settled into a state of confusion.
Okay. Yeah. So. Fixing that?
I don't know. Just. Focus. I guess.
How've you solved this before? I know that people have tried to overshadow you before.
Yeah, but it's always different. Like, with Poindexter I got him to overshadow me again.
Uhuh.
See? You made the sound.
No, mine is a different sound.
Whatever. Just try to focus. Like, on our arm. Arms? Something small, and we'll figure out how to untangle it. It's just body manipulation. Small scale.
Right.
Following Danny's advice, she very slowly peeled her left hand out of Danny's. It stung, pins and needles, like it had fallen asleep and was just waking up. It also itched. She continued the process, pulling out of Danny's body bit by bit. Finally, she flopped out, just her lower legs staying stuck.
Danny gasped.
"Careful," he said, voice strained.
"I'm trying. Are you trying?"
"I'm trying. You know I'm trying."
It took another couple of minutes to disentangle their feet. By the end of it, they were both breathing heavily.
"Wow," said Hannah. "Well, that was horrifying."
"Be nice," said Mia.
"C'mon, you didn't see it. It was horrifying."
"I'm nearsighted, not blind," protested Mia.
Ellie floated up, and stretched, getting used to her body again. "Okay, I'm going down to see if I can get everyone up here."
Danny tested his ankle slightly. His face brightened. "Ah. Wow, I didn't expect that to work so well." He stood up, and bounced a little.
"If you screw that up again, I'll have to kill you."
"I'll try not to," said Danny. "I'm coming with you."
Ellie floated threateningly overhead. "No, you're not."
Danny smiled up at her. "Yes, I am."
"No."
"You can't stop me."
Ellie groaned. "You're an idiot."
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Danny made heavy use of the banister, and the twist of mind that could lessen the force of 'gravity,' as he made his way back down the stairs. It would be a lie to say that his ankle didn't still hurt, but he felt much better. It was so liberating to be able to walk again. He was humming, both normally, with his lips and vocal cords, and with his core.
He was also happy, probably happier than he should be, to be useful again. He was still stressed about his people being in danger, but that had been the case for a while, and now he could do something about it. So he was, by comparison, happy.
So. Humming.
It also tuned out the faint sounds of shouts, ectoblasts, and various weird sounds, that even Danny couldn't interpret. Beanbags crashing into things, maybe?
Despite Ellie's initial objections, the two of them had decided to split up, as long as Cujo stayed with Danny. Danny would try and get people who were just confused and scared to move on, Ellie would try to take care of the more combative. Like Dash and Dale, who Danny suspected would still be punching each other, and Valerie.
(Mr Lancer had tried to come with them, but the floor's effect had defeated him.)
Yeah. Danny was glad that he would be allowed to avoid that. He was pretty sure that Valerie had begun to suspect the truth, and if she was, she'd probably attack him on impulse. But since Ellie was faster than he was, and flying, she'd get to them first.
Or so he thought.
He dodged a fist that came at him as soon as he stepped off the stairs and past the wall that enclosed them. He spun on his good foot, and came face-to-face with an ugly purple hamburger monster. Oh, no, wait, it was just Dash. Danny grimaced in sympathy, and hit him in the jaw. Dash fell straight backwards. Danny winced as he hit the floor, and shook out his hands.
He quickly checked Dash over, making sure he wasn't too hurt. No internal bleeding, no broken bones, no bleeding cuts, no giant dent in the back of his head... No, it looked like all of Dash's injuries were pretty superficial, except for the possibly broken nose. Honestly, everything was too swollen for him to really tell. He rolled Dash onto his side. Recovery position.
Well. This would be hard to explain. Or maybe not. Dash was pretty beat up already... He could play it off like Dash had passed out from his wounds.
Ugh. Who was he trying to kid, here? His secret was as good as blown. He still couldn't just let go of it. His secret identity had been a big part of his identity for years.
So. Should he just sit here with Dash, or should he leave Dash, and look for other people? Unfortunately, he couldn't get Dash up the stairs. Danny might be operating at above normal human levels again, but only slightly. No matter what he said to Ellie, he was far from being even close to his normal.
He rubbed his eyes, and sat down on the bottom step. He couldn't leave Dash here, defenseless. He had much less faith in the safety of this place than Ellie. He'd wait until Dash woke up, and get him to go up the stairs.
In the meantime, he scanned the surrounding area, out to where his line of sight was obscured by large beanbags. Maybe someone would happen by, and he could direct them up the stairs. That would be nice. It would be good if it was someone like Mikey, or Star. They'd be easier to deal with.
It occurred to him suddenly that, seeing as the last time he'd seen Dash he'd been fighting Dale, Dale might be lying unconscious somewhere, beat up far more than Dash was.
Danny made a small noise in the back of his throat. If only he could be in two places at once. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option at the moment. Maybe he'd just... walk around a bit. He'd stay in sight of Dash, keep an eye on him, and keep the other eye out for Dale, or anyone else that might be around.
He got up gingerly, keeping the weight off of his still-healing ankle. He started walking in a wide arc, Cujo at his heel. One eye on Dash and the stairs, one eye on the greater part of the room. He kept an ear out, too. Some of the beanbags were quite large, and provided numerous blind spots from which a person could jump out at him.
He peered around one, and saw a flash of fuchsia light. There was Valerie, crouched in the shadow of a beanbag, dripping with bright ectoplasm. What was Ellie doing? She was supposed to find Valerie, not him.
His brain caught up with him. Her hands were dripping with ectoplasm, surrounded by a neon glow. Okay. How was he going to deal with this? Could he deal with this? Should he just turn around and go back, let Ellie find Valerie, and take care of her? Would that be better, more helpful, for Valerie? Safer for both of them?
He took a careful step back, hesitated, and made up his mind. "Valerie?"
Her head turned so fast that Danny could hear her vertebrae crack. He was shocked she didn't break her own neck.
"You," she breathed. Her eyes sparked red-violet.
"Um, Valerie? Are you-"
"You lied to me!" She threw the ectoplasm in her hands at Danny, but, although he flinched, it came nowhere near hitting him.
He put his hands up in a placating gesture. "Val, please, don't."
"You and that dog!" She had built up enough ectoplasm for another bolt, and threw it in Cujo's direction. Danny yanked Cujo out of the way, and overbalanced as he tried to keep weight off his bad foot, falling. "You ruined my life!"
"Val, it was an accident, Cujo didn't know any better!" He held tightly onto the little puppy tightly as he whimpered and barked. "He's a puppy."
"He's your dog," ground out Valerie, "he's your dog, and he's always been your dog, Phantom." Ectoplasm was pooling in her hands again, which were held as fists at her sides. Her stance was wide, steady, her shoulders hunched.
Oh. This wasn't good. "I'm not possessed anymore," he said, cautious.
"I know," said Valerie. "I know. You- You're like Danielle. No. You're like Vlad. You're a manipulative slime, and you've both been laughing at me all this time. You're monsters."
"I'm not- I mean," Danny began to squirm away, "I am a half-ghost, but I'm not laughing at you. I never laughed at you. I just- I was- I'm scared. You saw the Guys in White. You know what my parents are like. You know- And you were working for Vlad, and I-"
"You dated me. You dated me. And you must have known. You aren't an idiot. You always- You always called me Val, and you said- You-"
The energy pooling in her hands flared, and she stumbled backwards, crying out.
"Shoot," said Danny, putting Cujo to one side and getting slowly to his feet. "Valerie? Are you okay? You, um. Oh, jeez, your hands."
Valerie was crying. "What even is this? What's happening to me?"
"It's, uh, it's liminality," said Danny, getting closer to Valerie, and then sitting down. "Your body is learning how to process the ectoplasm, and stuff. Like I said before, remember? It's just, here, let me see your hands." He extended his hands to her, but didn't touch.
"What?" said Valerie, her hands curled defensively to her chest.
"I think I can help," said Danny. "You, um, let the ectoplasm build up too much, and you don't have the control structures that ghosts do, because, well, you're not a ghost. It happened to me a few times?" he offered, finally.
Valerie's mouth pressed into a flat line. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, keeping her hands close to her chest.
"You scared me, Valerie."
"Then why did you date me?"
"I guess I thought I could change your mind, a little," said Danny, "and I thought what you were doing was really cool. I had, you know, ghost powers, but you just had the suit and you were still managing, even with your job at the Nasty Burger. I barely manage, and, like, I have friends who help me. Please. I think I can help you with your hands. They must hurt." Danny licked his lips as Valerie stared at his outstretched hands.
"Fine," said Valerie, thrusting out her hands.
Danny took them carefully, turning them over so that he could see the palms. They were burnt in the stripy pattern that, as far as Danny knew, was unique to hot, energized ectoplasm. She had inherited her type of ectoplasm from the suit, it seemed, which had been patterned after Vlad's. Vlad had a hot core, therefore Valerie's ectoplasm tended to be hot.
"A lot of the times," said Danny, "ectoplasm burns aren't real burns. Sometimes, it winds up that it's more like a fast-acting sunburn, which isn't really a burn, you know. Did you know?" He was babbling. He wanted Valerie's mind far, far away from the idea of 'beat up Danny.' He slowly lowered the temperature of his hands, cooling Valerie's, and let some ectoplasm seep into them as well. Hopefully, a touch of friendly ectoplasm would help her heal.
"A sunburn isn't a burn," Valerie's voice was flat with incredulity. It was probably partially carryover from the generally unbelievable situation she found herself in.
"No, it's actually your skin cells killing themselves because of radiation damage to your DNA. But, like, ectoplasm can fix that, too. I put ice on these, for myself, but I heard that isn't good for normal people. It causes frostbite, or something."
"I'm not normal," said Valerie, voice breaking.
"Okay, bad adjective. You're still human. You have human temperature tolerance levels. I don't." He licked his lips. "I can't really get rid of the the burns. I can't share my, um, fast healing. So." He pulled back. "How does that feel?"
Valerie took her hands back. "Cold," she said.
"Yeah, sorry. So, uh, I kinda left Dash back there, and he's... sort of unconscious."
"Why?" asked Valerie, harshly.
Danny debated whether or not he should tell Valerie what had really happened. His first impulse was to lie, but lies required creativity, which he was out of, so he just made meaningless mouth sounds for the a couple seconds.
"He jumped me and I hit him," he admitted finally. "I can hit really hard."
Valerie groaned. "Of course you can."
"Maybe you can take him upstairs?" Danny suggested. "The next floor won't affect- Oh. It might affect you, but it changes what job you have, so it's not as bad as here." He offered up a shaky smile. "Right?"
Valerie frowned deeply, suspiciously. "Okay. Fine. Whatever. How do I keep from turning into a human explosion?" she asked.
"At this point, just try to stay calm," Danny said. "Don't get upset, and if you do feel the ectoplasm building up, try to focus on the image of it being pulled back, under your skin, into your chest. Um. I know you won't like to hear this, and I don't like saying this, but Vlad might be able to help you more. Your ectoplasm is more like his than mine."
"Great," said Valerie, but she stood. "Where is he, and where are the stairs?"
Danny beamed. "I'll show you."
