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Chapter 272: Middleman
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The car was a jeep. Military issue. Or, at least, Sam assumed so, given that it was part of the fleet at a military facility and its general appearance matched with what she expected from movies. It looked like it had experienced a fair amount of use but had been kept in good condition. There was a fair amount of dust and dirt and there were things stored in the compartments and pouches
Sam was rather interested in those things, although she couldn't tell what most of them were. Potential weapons, she hoped. She doubted that unsecured guns would be left lying around in a vehicle like this, it wasn't the Fenton GAV, after all,
She was furious enough at Freakshow at this point that killing him wasn't off the table. In fact, Freakshow's death would, in Sam's estimation, be a laudable goal in and of itself. That's how much she hated the smug little man.
Judging from the way her mother was sitting, she was having similar thoughts, and it was still the weirdest thing, to have common ground with her mother like that.
(Yes, it was weirder than being kidnapped. She'd been kidnapped… Actually, she had lost count. That was possibly somewhat disturbing. Should she worry about that?)
So. She was looking for weapons. But she was also trying to figure out when it would be safe to use a weapon if and when she found one, because the car was currently being carried through the air by a flight of ghosts.
Yeah. Not really conducive to escape. Waiting until they landed to attack was really the only option, even though that ran counter to all her instincts, habits, and training, too if it came to that. No secondary locations. That was the rule, right?
Did the sky count as a secondary location?
Wait to get there and try to escape… or wait until someone rescued them.
Both of which sucked as options and weren't really options at all. Just… waiting.
Sam sighed. There were things she could do while waiting. "Where are we going, anyway? Because if this is some abandoned carnival or fairground or theme park or whatever, can I just say overdone?"
"Oh, you'll see, you'll see. It's somewhere you two are very familiar with, you see. I think you'll enjoy it. Oh, yes."
No. No way. There was no way he'd be that dumb. Because if he went to Amity Park, Danny would find out, and Danny would destroy him.
Not to mention Amity Park knew how to deal with ghost invasions.
He could be that stupid, though. He probably thought Amity Park was a great recruitment spot.
… And maybe it was. All those newly woken ghosts would probably be vulnerable to whatever he was using. At least as much as Dmitri was vulnerable to it.
But surely even Freakshow would be able to understand the risks. Danny had defeated him twice, now.
… Although Danny hadn't really fought him like he fought ghosts. Fights with Freakshow were more battles of wit that fisticuffs. Maybe Freakshow was underestimating him. Underestimating ghosts. That did seem to be something Freakshow did, the racist – spectrist? – jerk. Along with the ghost envy, various hate crimes, and absolutely literal slavery, which, uh. Was continuing currently.
She should probably count her current situation among Freakshow's crimes. What a monster.
Should she try to dissuade Freakshow from Amity Park? Encourage it? Say nothing? Try to get more information?
"I seriously doubt I'll enjoy anything that has anything to do with you."
Freakshow laughed. "Oh, I don't think you'll have much choice. Adapt or die, as you say. And if you die, well, no loss. I would quite like to see you added to my army."
Pamela briefly lunged forward, only to be restrained by a ghost. "Don't you touch my daughter you freak."
"Oh, ho. Look at that. Mommy's got claws."
Sam grabbed her mother's sleeve. Pamela grabbed her hand back.
"Oh, yes, yes. That's it. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. Don't worry about all that other stuff. Not while we're up here on cloud nine, yes?"
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Dan was scanning the ground. He didn't think Freakshow knew how to fly a plane or a helicopter, and it looked like the same number of planes and helicopters were there as there were when the diplomats got there, so he had to either get ghosts to carry him or he had to have driven away from the facility. Maybe Freakshow would trust ghosts enough to let them carry him without any other support, but he was the type of guy who enjoyed his comforts.
Being dragged through a late November sky with no protection but clothing or intangibility was unlikely to be Freakshow's idea of comfortable.
(Dan still remembered the almost obscene luxury of Freakshow's personal train car, and the comparative squalor of the one where he 'kept' the ghosts when he wasn't using them.)
(Dan remembered the almost-joy he felt when he'd finally rendered Freakshow a non-threat. Permanently.)
The ectoplasmic mist creeping along the ground and rising into the air made things more difficult. But finding things on the ground was much easier than finding things in the air, a feat that he had accomplished quite recently.
Which meant that he should have found them by now. Despite the rapidly mutating plants, it should have been easy to find them. He should, at least, be able to track the horde of mind-controlled ghosts.
Except, those mind-controlled ghosts had scattered. It was infuriating. Did Freakshow do this on purpose? Dan hadn't thought he was that smart. Did he know someone was following him? Or was it more that whatever he was using for mind control this time wasn't quite up to controlling all of them now that his accomplice had been caught and sent away?
Actually, who cared? Freakshow's brains or lack of brains simply weren't Dan's problem. Dan had gotten rid of him last time. He'd do it again this time.
Except probably not as permanently, given the looks his… acquaintances would undoubtedly give him. No matter how satisfying and convenient it would be.
(The convenient part was debatable. Freakshow was exactly the kind of person who would come back as a ghost, but that just meant Dan could beat him up even more thoroughly.)
But the fact remained that Freakshow wasn't on the ground. At least not that Dan, or any of his duplicates, could see. He'd had a few false alarms, too, cars of evacuating facility personnel (who he'd scared the heck out of, but that was neither here nor there).
He'd literally never hear the end of it if he didn't find Freakshow. Literally, because he was effectively immortal, and so were the people who'd give him a hard time about it. Namely, Nephthys and Danny. Sam probably would become a ghost, too, so there was another potential source of annoyance.
That's really all this was about. It wasn't anything like Dan really caring about Sam's wellbeing. Really. Probably.
Ugh, he thought he'd gotten past this already.
He glared at the cloudy sky again. Maybe Freakshow was flying. Considering his lack of success down here, would it hurt to check?
Probably. He needed to be down here to keep expanding his search radius. If Freakshow was on the ground, Dan would find him, smoke him out.
It was inevitable.
But if he was in the sky…
Grudgingly, Dan tasked one of his clones to search for signs of recent air travel.
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Freakshow and 'Ms. Forest's' victims were being kept in a hastily erected tent guarded by Libra's bounty hunters for the time being. They were waiting for pickup by Walker's men, given that Libra wouldn't be able to keep anywhere this number of additional prisoners until the humans they already had were processed.
'Processed,' meaning 'killed and turned into thralls for Danny's thrall army that Danny really would prefer not to exist.'
But Danny was trying not to dwell on that.
He was also trying not to think about his new mind control powers, but that was unfortunately, where they were starting.
Danny sighed, and mentally reached for the new power. It stayed firmly out of reach, which was just typical. Totally normal for new powers. Very inconvenient, though.
He'd been able to command these ghosts before, though, and although he hadn't been able to snap any of them but Irving out of the mind control, it stood to reason that the right application of mind control would overwrite old mind control. Maybe it even already had, given that these ghosts were now just… floating passively.
It was sort of creepy, honestly. Their eyes were all the exact same shade of red, too, which normally didn't happen. There were usually variations in shade and tint and glow. Not now. Not here.
Danny just had to figure this out. Figure out how to release them, because, really, hunting down all their Obsessions and trying to trigger them all was going to take far too long.
Well. That was probably subjective. Ghosts didn't die or anything. This wasn't terminal. But leaving them under Freakshow's control, or any control for that matter, was wrong.
(Not to mention a security issue. He had been reading up on governance. He was learning the vocabulary for it. The very stupid vocabulary.)
(Why couldn't they just say a threat? It was a threat, after all. If Freakshow could still command them… Well. There weren't enough people under control to really pose a problem, in the grander scheme of things, but… hostages.)
He refocused. He would get this power under control. He would free his people.
Slowly, the ghosts turned to look at Danny, their eyes a slightly different shade of red than before.
"Erm," said Danny. He clapped his hands together. "Wake up?"
The red faded out. Leaving Freakshow's red.
And a huge pain in Danny's head. Ow. He rubbed his face, and his hand came away with a small amount of ectoplasm. He rubbed his thumb under his nose again, wiping off ectoplasm.
"Wow," said Danny. "I hate this power."
"We don't have to do this," said Damien.
"Yeah," said Danny. "I'm going to try again."
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"Damien? Is something wrong?" asked Danny noticing Damien staring rather intently at what was simply empty space as he floated about half a meter off the ground, his hands wrapped tightly around the hilt of the practice sword Fright Knight had given him.
Damien looked away, but quickly glanced back at the empty space before giving Danny more of his attention. "I'm fine," he said.
"Are you sure?" asked Danny, worried.
Damien nodded sharply, but his eyes strayed back to the empty spot again. Actually, the guards were also looking at the spot rather… intently.
"It's just that I remembered something I overheard while hanging out with Fright Knight," said Damien. "In the library."
"He had you in the library?" asked Danny, though it really shouldn't surprise him. Danny had been in and out of the library himself, trying to learn more about law and precedent for his human parents' trial, among other things. Damien was probably trying to learn about everything, given he'd just recently been reborn.
"Yes," said Damien in a rather shifty sort of way. "I remember that some people were talking about aglaophotis. About conservation efforts or something?"
Aglaophotis did sound familiar. Was it one of Sam's plants? Something she'd looked up? Wait, wait, context. He actually did know what that was. He'd read about it, even. Talked to Moneta about it. Made sure some was available, in case they needed to send less powerful ghosts after Freakshow for some reason.
"Aglaophotis can help with mind control," said Danny, remembering. He'd looked it up before talking to Lydia. That felt like forever ago.
"That's what I've heard," said Damien. "I don't know if it's true or not. Maybe it's worth looking into?"
"Yeah," said Danny. "I mean, I'm not getting anything out of this except a headache and a nosebleed." And a lot of guilt, but he wasn't going to talk about that right now. "Let's go check it out."
