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Chapter 207: Four Places at Once
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"Vlad," said Danny, intercepting him in the hall. "I need to talk to you."
"I imagine you do, Daniel," said Vlad, smiling. "So. What can I do for you?"
"You don't need to make that sound so evil," said Danny. "It's more about what you can do for the town, anyway."
"Believe it or not, little badger," said Vlad, "I have been doing quite a bit. Confirming reports, funding protests, leaning on politicians, that sort of thing." He sighed. "Unfortunately, the GIW has quite a bit of influence of their own."
Danny nodded. "If some people from here could get out safely, though, you could get them heard, right?"
"Yes, Daniel. Believe it or not, I do care about this town. It's comfortable when it isn't being overrun."
"I don't suppose you could get them out of town the way you've been getting out of town."
Vlad raised an eyebrow. "You may have revealed your secret, but I would prefer to keep mine. I must commend you, however, on convincing them all to keep your secret from the outside world."
"After all this," said Danny, shrugging, "it wasn't exactly difficult." He paused, tapping his foot. "Can you bring supplies in your way?" he asked. "Pretend that you had them all along, in, like, a panic room or closet or something."
"For emergencies, hm?"
Danny shrugged. "I'm worried about people who need medicine and things like that."
Vlad regarded Danny for a long moment. "I could do that, yes."
Danny braced himself for Vlad's demands.
"I will have to compile a list of needed items first, of course," said Vlad.
Danny blinked. "You're not going to demand that I do something for you, first?" he asked, surprised.
"I'm not heartless, Daniel," said Vlad. "Go, run along then. I'm sure your minders are getting impatient." Vlad began to walk away, down the hall.
Danny rolled his eyes. He would never understand Vlad. One moment giving him trouble, the next, this. He stopped before he left.
"Hey, Vlad?"
"What?"
"Thanks."
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The ride out to the edge of the shield was short. No one else was really on the road.
Danny sat in the back of Ishiyama's car with Wes. He could have gotten there faster if he had flown, but with humans wanting to go as well, this was more convenient.
"Can I ask you something?" asked Ishiyama.
"Sure," said Danny.
"You said you're the ghosts' king," she said.
"Prince, really," said Danny.
"Your… country. Do you have diplomats?"
"Probably," said Danny. "I'm sort of new to this, and the last guy, well, let's just say he didn't do much governing the past few hundred years."
Ishiyama sighed. "I used to teach social studies," she said. "I always taught it as a practical class, but…" she trailed off. "If you were to establish the Ghost Zone as a foreign country in the eyes of the world, it might help. Or make it worse, I suppose. A whole country of ghosts is scarier than an infestation. But you would have more tools to deal with that. Because a country is scarier. Not that you'd have to do it as yourself, of course," she added.
"I think I get what you mean," said Danny. "But I don't know how much I'll actually be able to do. I'm not old enough to complete some of the rituals safely, so until then, I have a regency council. I think. I really did only find out about my… status… a few days ago. I don't know what will be allowed."
Wes made a clicking noise with his tongue.
"Really," said Danny. "I don't. I'm going to do everything I can, but I don't even know what that is. Not yet."
"I just think that the survival of everyone in Amity Park is more important than the legal trouble your parents have landed themselves in," said Wes.
"You're right," said Danny, "but I'm not really sure what you expect me to do." He paused. "I guess I could try to fly out, avoid the GIW, and get news about Amity to the rest of the world, but hopefully your broadcast and Ms. Chin's broadcast already did that, and I don't know if I could keep the shield in place if the GIW got me."
"You could help us fix things," said Wes.
"Yeah. And you know who could fix things faster? My parents." If he could convince the court to let them go. Maybe he could spin it as community service. "I know a lot about their tech, but not everything." He shook his head. "And maybe Mrs. Ishiyama's idea will work. Maybe we can resolve this diplomatically."
"We're here," said Mrs. Ishiyama, stopping the car.
"Right," said Danny, unbuckling himself and opening the door. It would have been easier, in some ways, to phase through the door, but Danny didn't feel comfortable using his powers that openly. Not after just a day of having them known.
Colonel Grey and a few other ghosts were already there, waiting.
He walked over to the very edge of the shield. Here, the great dome was almost vertical. He knelt and dug away at the bottom with his hands. "Okay," he said, "it looks like this goes underground, too." That was one less worry. The GIW wouldn't be able to dig under the shield.
"We'll need to go deeper, to make sure," said Wes. "It would be a bad if it only went a couple feet."
Danny nodded, and wiped his hands on his jeans. He put his hand against the shield.
"Okay," he said. "Let's test this." He focused on letting his hand go through the shield. To his surprise, it worked. The shield parted easily around his hand. It did feel sort of tingly, though. He pulled his hand back.
"I didn't think you'd do that with your hand," said Ishiyama, rather pale. "What if there were agents out there? They might have taken your hand off!"
"Oh," said Danny. "I didn't really think about that. I guess you guys ought to use sticks or something."
"And you should turn away," said Wes.
"So that I don't influence it subconsciously, I know, I know," said Danny. "I could also just leave, if you're that worried about it. I do have to get back, sooner rather than later."
"No, we'll have to test again when you're gone, anyway," said Ishiyama. "Stay."
Danny shrugged. The humans and the ghosts started to see if they could push things through the shield. His hand still felt tingly. That was weird.
Something unpleasant occurred to him.
"Hey, guys?" he asked, looking over his shoulder. "You don't suppose the bomb they dropped on us was a nuke, do you?"
Everyone backed away from the shield, rapidly.
"I don't know," said Ishiyama. "But- They wouldn't, would they?"
"Never underestimate people like them," said Colonel Grey, shaking his head. "They'll do anything."
"Were any of you able to get your sticks through, at least?"
"Yeah," said Wes, casting a rather strangled look at a twig near his foot. He took a large step away from it. "We all were."
"We need to see if someone has a Geiger counter," said Ishiyama. "Who would even have one of those?"
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"Hi, O. Hi, K," said Danny.
The two former agents looked ill, sitting on the couch in the basement. They weren't being kept in the same place as the other surviving agents (and there were precious few of those) but it was quite clear that they were being kept. That is, that they were prisoners. Not free to go.
Although, there was the question of where they would go if they were free. Danny rather doubted that the shield would let them through, even if it let people from Amity Park through. After all, that shield was there to keep GIW agents out.
"Hello, Phantom," said O, nervously.
Danny suppressed a grimace. A part of him had hoped they hadn't noticed.
Instead, he smiled. "I hear you two helped. Warned Wes about the plan to kill everybody."
The two agents exchanged looks. "Yes?" said K.
"That's good," said Danny. "We're going to need more help, going forward. What are your names?"
"You know our names."
"Your real names," said Danny, "and then, maybe, you can help us save everyone's lives. Including yours."
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Danny visited the dead.
First, the dead who had fallen in battle. The corpses carefully laid out in the community center. The defenders of Amity Park who had given their all. Each face he recognized, and he recognized all of them, felt like a punch to the stomach. His core twinged. These were people he had failed.
There were too many. He felt sick.
At the same time, it gave him a certain sense of pride. They were his people, and they had been so good, so brave.
He looked at the other people grieving and standing vigil over the bodies and wondered if he should be here, if he was intruding. The others were friends and family members. Danny had known all of them, had held them in his heart and core, but he hadn't truly been close to them.
(There were very few people he was close to, and all of them were a world away.)
But he didn't think he could have stayed away. He owed these people, for doing and giving what he couldn't.
Also, he had to know, had to come close enough to see and feel them, see and feel the traces of their lives and deaths.
What he felt gave him hope.
They were coming back. All of them.
This gave him the strength to look at the other bodies. These had not been given the consideration that the Amity dead had but had still been removed from the streets for hygiene reasons.
These were the GIW agents and scientists that had been killed for Amity Park's survival. For the worlds' survival, really, because Danny was certain they would have continued to try and destroy the Infinite Realms if they hadn't been stopped.
The hum of not-life so apparent in the Amity dead was absent from the GIW. Danny knew that they would be buried away from the graveyards and cemeteries the others would be interred in. Probably in a mass grave, with only a perfunctory marker, so that no one would dig them up by mistake. No one in Amity Park would mourn them.
Their deaths had been just.
Danny took a deep breath, inhaling the odor of human decay. It was both familiar and not.
He had killed some of those people. His stomach twisted. He had killed them, and he had meant to.
Another long breath. In, and out.
They had been evil people. Still people. But evil. He hadn't enjoyed it, but he had done what he had needed to do to stop people from being hurt. Hurt by them.
He wasn't going to follow Dan's path.
Adrestia followed him silently as he left the community center. There were more dead to see to before he left.
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He thanked the dead who had risen up, and the animal spirits who had done so much. He thanked the will-o-the-wisps and the more humanoid ghosts. When that was done, he started to get their side of the story, and set up lines of communication.
"Can you really get to Harmony from here?" he asked Inky, running a hand down her back. The ghostly cat purred up at him. Nearby, a tiger chuffed.
"It is extremely difficult," said the tiger. "But not impossible. For ghosts." It grinned, showing razor-silver teeth. "And the occasional living cat. Humans, though? We haven't tried it."
Danny nodded. "But people were able to hide in the spatial pockets and anomalies," he said.
"That's not quite the same, dear," said Mrs. Holiday, a formerly human ghost. "Those places are odd, but they are still here. Passing through entirely, and to such a specific place, a lair, somewhere pinched off from the rest of the Zone, it's different."
"I guess it would be," said Danny. "But, other ways, natural portals and things like that, you guys will keep an eye on them, right?"
"Of course, we will," said Sunset.
Danny sighed. "Thank you. Just, with everything else, please keep doing what you've been doing. Cooperating with the humans and all that. I think I need to go now."
"We aren't really on a schedule," said Adrestia, "but, yes, we do need to get going."
"Right," said Danny, floating up from the ground. "Do you think we could make one little detour on the way there?"
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"Please?" asked Danny, for what felt like the thousandth time.
"Oh my gosh!" said Meg, the only one of the Gracious Ones flying nearby. The others were monitoring the other side of the flock. "Just let him go, what can it hurt?"
"I don't want him to get lost!" said Adrestia. "Like, I'm all for going around, doing what you want and all that, but do you want to face Astraea and tell her that he disappeared again?"
"Just go with him," said Meg. "You're called Adrestia the Inescapable for a reason."
"Yeah, and I don't want my name to become a lie!"
"I won't run away," said Danny, contemplating running away. "Not if you let me go, anyway."
Adrestia folded two of her arms and turned on her side as they flew. "What's so important that it can't be left, anyway?"
Danny adjusted his course to fly closer to Adrestia. "You know Ellie, right?"
"Your sister?" asked Adrestia, cautiously.
"Yeah. My sister-by-theft. She wasn't the only one."
"You have other siblings-by-theft?" asked Meg.
"And what does that have to do with your detour?"
"Well," said Danny, "they weren't stable. They melted. But I saved their cores! But their cores were in a box that I hid in my wall, and the GIW found them, and I grabbed them and sent a duplicate to take them to safety, but I wasn't able to get to a really good place, so I gave them to the Box Ghost." Danny shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Adrestia patted him on the shoulder. "Alright," she said. "We'll go. Do I want to ask who the Box Ghost is?"
"You'll find out either way!" said Danny, cheerfully.
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Danny knocked on the door to the Box Ghost's lair. The sound was muffled by the cardboard it was covered in, but still quite loud. He was sure it would be heard inside.
He could only hope the Box Ghost would answer. Danny really didn't want to try to fight a ghost in their own lair. Not even the Box Ghost.
But the door did ease open a crack. "Whoooooo daaares disturb the fearsome- Phantom!" The Box Ghost threw the door the rest of the way open and, to Danny's surprise, hugged him. "The Great Box Ghost thought you had ended!"
"What?" Danny pulled away. "I wasn't ending! That was a duplicate!"
"Oh," said the Box Ghost. He turned his head, only now seeming to notice Adrestia. "Have you, too, come TO SEEK THE AID OF THE GREAT BOX GHOST?" he asked, volume increasing with every word.
Danny winced. "Um, no," said Danny. "I came to say thank you, and to ask for, um, what was in the box I gave you back. You can keep the box, like I said, but… I really need them back. Please."
The Box Ghost blinked at him for a moment. "OF COURSE, THE AMAZING BOX GHOST WILL HELP. DIDN'T THE AMAZING AND GENEROUS BOX GHOST SAY THAT YOU COULD HAVE YOUR BOX BACK?"
"Yes, I guess you did." Danny just hadn't entirely believed that.
The Box Ghost disappeared briefly into his lair and came back with the box. "SPREAD THE WORD OF HOW I, THE GENROUS AND POWERFUL BOX GHOST RESCUED THIS BOX."
"Sure," said Danny. He wrapped his arms protectively around the box, around his siblings. "Thank you, Box Ghost. I really mean it. If there's ever anything I can do for you, please tell me."
The Box Ghost sniffed but looked touched. "IT WAS NOTHING," he said, before slamming his lair door closed.
"Well," said Danny to Adrestia, "see? I got them and didn't get lost or anything."
Adrestia sighed. "Yet," she said.
