Happy holidays! Be sure to check out the Mortified-compatible fic I just posted!

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Chapter 265: Control, Control, Control

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Dmitri followed Dan down, towards the facility, despite the older ghost's admonishments to stay put. He wanted to help in any little way he could.

Then, as they passed the highest roof, he caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye.

He wasn't behind Dan anymore. He whipped his head back and forth, trying to find his cousin, but all he could see was a human woman dressed in green clothing and glittering red jewelry.

That color… it was almost… hypnotic.

(Oh, no. He remembered this.)

"Don't move." The woman walked closer. "Now, I meant to get any of you disgusting abominations that decided to flee," she said, "but you look interesting enough. And rather like the one they call Phantom." A hand wrapped around his body. "Tell me about yourself," the woman ordered.

A red film crept over Dmitri's vision, and he did exactly as he was told.

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Dan dropped through the roof of the building, only deciding to bother with intangibility at the last moment. He landed on top of a mass of purposefully moving but poorly delineated ghosts. Many of them were carrying humans in military uniforms, the erstwhile guards and staff of the facility. There were red-pink glowing lines of chalk on every surface.

Ugh. So, this is what Freakshow had been planning, was it? Unoriginal.

The nearby ghosts attacked him, dropping the human prisoners. Dan snorted, raised his fist, and—

And—

Heck. It was empathy. He couldn't just kill these guys for being mind controlled. That was inconvenient.

New plan. Instead of carnage, he was going to find the handful of people he actually cared about and pull them out. Maybe the president, too, if Jazz really insistent.

The military guys were on their own, though.

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"Aren't you guys supposed to snap out of it now?" asked Jazz, batting Johnny's hand away with Calesvol, leaving a thin line of dripping ectoplasm behind.

"I don't think they're on your side, princess," said the president, whom Jazz had pulled behind her.

"I can see that," she said. "But they shouldn't be mind controlled anymore, with Freakshow gone. He's not even in this dimension anymore!" While talking, she had banished two more ghosts to the fear realm.

"Are you sending them to the Ghost Zone? Is that what this is?"

"No, more like a pocket dimension. I was serious about the world made up of his own fears thing," said Jazz, trying to herd him towards the door. "It'll probably break them free of Freakshow's magic, but—"

"Magic's a thing now?" asked the president, slightly hysterical.

"That's what gets you in this situation?"

"Well, I'm trying to distract myself from the fact that you're most likely dead."

"I'm not – Ah! – I'm not dead! Why would you think I was dead?"

The president gestured at… well. All of her.

"I'm not dead," she said. "I just… magic. It's magic." She wasn't explaining liminality in the middle of a battle. Heck, she didn't want to explain liminality to the president at all. They had been actively trying to keep him from finding out about it.

"Great," said the president in the tone of someone who didn't think it was great at all.

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"Dan!" shouted Sojourn. "Where's Dmitri?"

"I left him up above. Where's Jazz?"

"You left him?"

"I told him to stay put!"

"Do you really think anyone related to you would actually do that?"

"Where's Jazz?"

"She went after the president after a young man on a bicycle rode away with him," said Sojourn, waving a hand and shoving an unconscious human through a portal.

"A bicycle?"

"A motorized one," said Sojourn.

"Johnny," said Dan. Well, if Jazz ended her ex, mind control or not, that was her prerogative. Sucked to be Johnny, though.

"And keep an eye out for the Mansons," said Sojourn as he flew to the ceiling, clearly intending to look for Dmitri. "I'm afraid we were separated."

"Great," said Dan in the tone of someone who didn't think it was great at all.

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It might surprise those who didn't know her well, but Pamela could keep her head in a pinch. Yes, the disappearance of her daughter and the hostile takeover of her hometown by pseudo-governmental goons had overwhelmed her usually robust sensibilities to an almost shameful degree. But in the here and now, her daughter was not missing, and her enemy was ghosts.

Pamela was from Amity Park. She could deal with ghosts.

More importantly, she could hide from ghosts.

Sam being unconscious was, however, a problem. Pamela was not young anymore, and although her good posture had saved her from a bad back, it had not completely saved her from other age-related ailments. Like stiff joints. Nor did it give her abilities like running quickly, or lockpicking, or ghost fighting.

She made do, rolling herself and Sam under one of the tanks that had stopped leaking ectoplasm.

Pamela didn't know what ghost eyesight was like, but she certainly couldn't see through the fog of ectoplasm that clung to and rolled along the floor. Of course, it also hid them from allies, but there were many more enemies than allies, and they'd already been separated. This was better, surely, than just standing around waiting for these ghosts to tear them apart.

Sam twitched and groaned, because in reality when someone was knocked out via a strike across the face, they usually didn't stay unconscious for very long.

Pamela was displeased to discover that, no matter how ghost eyes worked, they had very good hearing.

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Sam could smell grass, dust, and ectoplasm. Like an explosion next to a park. Wind played through her bangs. Who had Danny been fighting this time?

Wait.

"The Amity representatives," said a woman's voice, disgust dripping from every syllable. "Well. I suppose you'll do, though more of the ghosts would be better."

"What do you want?" snapped… that was Sam's mom.

Memory dripped back into Sam's skull. Had she been knocked out by Klemper? Wow. She was never telling anyone that.

She stayed limp and kept her eyes closed. Pretending to be unconscious could give her opportunities for escape or counterattack.

"To save the world," said the woman. "From these monsters." There was a sort of squeaking sound. "I wanted more of them to lead this army – to show that all the actions they take are just the prelude to betrayal and destruction. But this one looks like that so-called prince… and everyone knows you've been working with them."

"We won't cooperate," said Pamela.

"Not even for your daughter?"

Sam's mother was silent.

"It doesn't matter, of course."

Pamela gasped. Sam didn't have time to react to that before a ghost tried to overshadow her.

Well. Sam had been overshadowed before. More importantly, she and Tucker had trained to fight overshadowing. She screamed, gathered up her sense of self, and pushed.

She opened her eyes in time to see the ghost, a rather beaten-looking woman, flung away.

She and her mother were on a roof. A woman in green was there as well, her hand wrapped around—

"Dmitri!"

"Interesting," said the woman, playing with the red stone at the end of her necklace.

A pair of ghosts with red eyes pinned Sam to the ground.

"You!" growled Sam at the entirely unfamiliar woman. "But, Freakshow-?"

"Means to an end," said the woman. "I lost contact with him a while ago. Wouldn't surprise me if he got himself killed." She sighed. "I'd hoped he would be at least a little bit competent, but there you have it. But he was only necessary to start the process of establishing control. Once it was there…" Her jewelry sparkled. "You, though… Tell me how you did that."

Sam mustered up the surliest glare in her inventory. It hadn't gotten a lot of use, lately.

This would be a great time for her to manifest some kind of ghostly offensive ability. Limited photograph-based clairvoyance and occasional plant-related powers were great and all, but they weren't the most battle-ready.

"Dmitri!"

Maybe her powers didn't really matter, if Sojourn was going to come barreling in, throwing half the roof through assorted portals.

He came to a stop only feet from the woman. "Release him," he growled, with a voice so deep you could lose a planet in it. The rooftop felt both unknowably vast and claustrophobically small. Sam got the distinct impression that the only reason the woman hadn't been bisected by a portal was that Sojourn was wary of accidentally hurting Dmitri.

Something prickled up the back of Sam's neck and the backs of her arms.

The woman squeezed Dmitri, and he squeaked like a deflating ball. Then she let him go.

"Stop," said Dmitri, no personality present in his voice. "Don't come closer. Don't do anything. If you come any closer, I'll tear out my core."

"Right," said the woman. "I can't control you, however that works, but if I can control that… It's almost the same thing, isn't it?"

The wind changed directions, and Sam realized: they were outside, she could smell ectoplasm and grass. Those lush lawns and understated gardens they'd walked past on the way in, they had to have been exposed to ectoplasm at this point. Sam could almost see it in her mind's eye, the low clouds of ectoplasm rolling over the greenery, obscuring it, blurring the edges of the leaves and grasses, seeping into the unsuspecting soil.

Maybe Sam didn't need to spontaneously develop a combat power. Maybe her combat power had been—

The roof was abruptly filled with rapidly purpling greenery, kickstarting chaos with regrettable efficiency.

Okay, forget powers. Sam would be infinitely happier if she could just get her hands on a reliable weapon.

The massive tree that was now overhead creaked ominously and began to fall. It hit the rooftop with a nasty crunching noise. Sam and her mother scrambled out of the way. The roof did not buckle, government facilities were good for something, Sam supposed, but the fallen tree trunk began to root itself, ropy, twisted shoots burrowing down and sending cracks out in every direction.

"Sam," said her mother, somehow both exasperated and terrified.

"I know," said Sam, "I know, I'm trying—" She noticed the mind-controlled ghosts coming towards them. "Crap," she said.

But it seemed the tree noticed them as well. The tree also appeared to have gained a taste for meat (or at least the living ectoplasm of ghosts) post ectoplasm exposure, but Sam had seen the hot dogs in Danny's fridge, as well as the aftermath of the Fenton Family holiday meals, so she couldn't say she was shocked. Dismayed, perhaps. She was a vegetarian, and those ghosts were, ultimately, innocent.

Innocent of trying to hurt her right now, anyway. They might have been guilting of something else; she didn't know what they were like without mind control.

Back to the point: the carnivorous tree was a problem. A different problem than what they'd had before, but a problem, nonetheless.

It would be great if her powers started working now. Or if she got a useful weapon.

A roughly baseball-bat-sized branch broke off the tree and rolled to a stop near her feet.

Okay. She'd take it.

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It was not easy to find Jazz. In fact, finding the airplane had been simpler. Perhaps if the ghosts had been given a little more instruction or a little more of their own will, it would be easier. Perhaps then, he could track her by their movements.

But the mind control here was a brutal, blunt instrument. The ghosts had obviously received orders to run and attack anyone not under control, but that was all they were doing. Without other input, they stood or floated blank and motionless in whatever position they managed to emerge from the holding tanks in.

It was creepy, but in a bargain bin haunted house kind of way. In other words, Dan had seen better.

Now, if only he could find his way to seeing Jazz.

And possibly Sam. Pamela was a distant third in his mind. She'd never liked him, either as Danny or as Vlad. He'd never cared for her. Not before Sam's death and definitely not after.

Jazz first. Quickly, too. He was having trouble holding back against the morons that let themselves get mind-controlled.

As luck would have it, however, Jazz found him.

"I knew we'd find someone if we followed the sound of fighting!" she shouted, brandishing a sword. Pale, golden-yellow hands floated around her like captured stars. Her eyes reflected the color, and a wide stripe of her hair had turned blue. She was also splattered with ectoplasm, which seemed to indicate that she currently had a higher kill count for this battle than Dan.

Which was just unfair.

"You're crazy!" shouted the president. "You're insane."

Dan was tempted to laugh. He hadn't seen anything yet.