Raditz: Quit your whining baby.
SS: I don't really feel like updating but I will anyway. It's not like any one it reading it but myself.
Raditz: She's going for sympathy points, don't listen to her.
SS: You don't like me either. Cries
Raditz: What don't cry! Panics
---
Vlad had just recently gotten back to his nap. It took him a while to calm jack down enough to believe him. He was on the edge off sleep, that place between dreams and wakefulness. It was a place he often went to because true sleep eluded him.
He was seated in a large chair speaking with the red haired elf. They were speaking of a problem of organization, one that Vlad could not fully remember when he woke, but it did not matter. That was mostly due to the massive power surge cut though the air, causing the elf and Vlad to jump to their feet. At fist he thought they were under attack when he recognized the energy.
Vlad woke up. 'That was Daniel's energy. Something's wrong.' he clicked on his communicator to contact Ember. Why was she not answering?
---
Ember stirred as the communicator beeped. The blond crushed it and said into his radio, "The enemy leader has attempted to establish contact with the guard. It might be wise to make haste."
---
"I will." Tomowashi had no doubt that the ghost king had felt that. She wouldn't be surprised if the mice in Japan felt the energy rolling off the prince. They only had one shot. Screw the original plan, there wasn't time for it.
She was downstairs in moments. The prince was on the ground and a girl was franticly trying to talk to him.
"Danny, come on, talk to me. Transform back. The ghost isn't that important. Danny."
'The girl is going to be a problem.' "I'm sorry, am I interrupting?" she said in her soft accent.
Violet eyes whipped around, causing raven hair to fly around her head like so many fine cut knives, "You're that ghost!"
Tomowashi was surprised, most would have gone over the deep end in fear from the shear amount of energy in the room. Instead he girl looked calm, even though she was obviously worried. "Ghost, hardly. I'm not a ghost at all. Did the prince tell you about me?"
"You're Tomowashi. Right?" the girl's glare was startlingly scary.
'The prince has an interesting taste in friends.' "Yes I am." she walked over to the two; the click of her heels against the wood floor echoed though the bowling ally. "It seems to be worse that I thought."
"What do you mean?"
"The prince's powers are developing at a faster rate than his body can handle. If his energy isn't controlled, it will destroy him from the inside out. That's not mentioning everything within a two mile radius."
A dark skinned boy walked into the room with a hot pad and some hot soup. "Only two miles? Man Piccolo could blow up the moon, and that was without hurting himself."
"Tucker this is not DBZ!" the girl half glared at him for a moment, torn between anger and worry. Worry won however, "What do we do to help him?"
"I know people who can help him." Tomowashi stated. "I will take him to them."
"Do you think we are stupid? About the time he starts having problems, you show up saying you can help? No way, you'll have to go though me first."
Tomowashi had to get out of there soon. The ghost king was going to show up any moment now. "He'll die if we don't hurry."
The girl's eyes widened, "And you didn't tell us earlier why?"
"Because I did not think that it would happen this fast." Tomowhasi added to the act by shaking her head.
The girl finally relented and getting up she said, "Ok, but you are taking me with you."
The boy called Tucker looked like he was going to say something but Tomowashi spoke over any protest he would have made. "Understood."
With a nod she bent down to pick Danny up. She never touched him. Instead she found herself against the wall and staring into the burning eyes of the ghost king.
"Do not touch my boy. If you do, you will spend the rest of eternity wishing that you were never brought into existence." With that, he dropped her and she received an ectoblast to the nose that nearly knocked off her sunglasses.
Not wanting to see if he'd go though with his threat she raced to the window. He was known for making his enemies suffer, and in truth Tomowashi was scared of him. Glass shattered as she dove through the window.
Vlad on the other hand had other problems to deal with. Both Sam and Tucker gaped at him, for a moment before standing between him and Danny. The answer seemed simple enough, go through them, but then Sam pulled out the Fenton ghost peeler.
She was also the first of the three to speak. "Stay back. Come any closer and we'll see what this thing can do to half ghosts."
Vlad was impressed, both of the children were scared so badly that they were shaking, but they had spunk. This may be causing him problems now but they would they would be useful later.
"Samantha right?" said girl cringed but never took her eyes off him. "Daniel's condition may not be critical yet, but he won't wake-up unless someone fixes his energy pattern."
"Wait, she said he would go ka-boom." Tucker blurted out.
Sam backed him up, "Yeah you're contradicting each other. What is really going on?"
Vlad raised an eyebrow 'Ka-boom? The things kids come up with these day.' "I highly doubt that he will blow up. This is the echo of a spell from before any of you were born. However if it is not fixed, he will have problems for a long time."
The teens looked back at their friend's prone form. Neither knew what to do. Sam decided that there was enough of a safety on Plasmius to get this to work. "Alright but one wrong move and your identity is down the gutter.
"Playing on your enemy's weakness. My lessons have been sinking in. Very well. I'll have him back home by evening. We can't have his parents suspicious so I'll say he was with you." Vlad phased through the two, picked up Danny, and vanished.
The two had stared at the now vacant spot for a while before Tucker spoke up. "I guess we aren't going to finish our game."
Sam dumped the now cold soup onto his head.
---
"I brought the elixir milord."
"Good let's see if he'll take it." Danny felt a cup press against his lips and numbing liquid flowed into his mouth.
"He is starting to wake up."
"Daniel, I told you not to mess with the restricted books. Now you know why."
A hand was gently stroking his forehead when he woke. It took him a moment after he opened his eyes to realize that the hand belonged to Jazz. She smiled at him when she saw he was awake. "I heard your day was interesting yesterday."
"How did I get home?" Danny tried to sit up but was pushed back down by jazz.
"Vlad brought you home around six. He told mom and dad that you got sick and fell asleep in the car.'
Danny winced; he didn't fancy the idea of being within a hundred feet of Plasmius, let alone being unconscious for who knows how long around him. "Did you talk to Sam and Tucker?"
"They called earlier this morning wanting to know if you were here. Once I told them that you were Tucker turned off his PDA on me."
"So… What happened with the ghost at Sam's?" he asked mostly himself.
"What ghost?"
"Never mind they must have got it." Danny spaced for a moment and then it dawned on him in big glowing numbers that said 12:33PM, "Lancers going to kill me for being late!"
Jazz had to sit on him to keep him in bed. "You, are not going to school. Mom already called you in sick. Speaking of which if you are not sick, then why were you sleeping?"
"I don't know." Danny didn't think he was sick. He didn't really know what was wrong. "I may be going out on a limb here but I'm going to say Plasmius has something to do with it."
Jazz shook her head, "Or you could just be sick."
He shook his head, "What are you doing home anyway?"
"Lunch brake. Besides, I needed to bring your homework." She patted the pile of books on his night stand. "You have a test in math on Friday."
He groaned, "Oh thanks Jazz, I feel so loved."
---
"Tomowashi, you have failed." A dark figure said.
"Give me some more time. I can bring him in."
"No, this time we do this my way." A young girl holding a giant teddy bear said.
"But…"
"You've had your chance." The girl shaped, "Now we do things my way." she smiled cruelly.
---
It was difficult for Danny to concentrate on his homework. His brain just wouldn't function with Vlad just around the corner, playing that irritating dice game with his parents. Jazz was across the table looking through notes.
Danny slammed his pencil down after another round of laughter drifted from the other room. "I give up!" How can he enjoy himself? He hates dad."
Jazz shrugged, "Maybe it's just him being around mom."
"I wish that Vlad was back in Wisconsin. Then I…" Danny suddenly looked around, "Darn it, no Desiree."
"You must be desperate.'
"Yes, yes I am. I'm going out. Maybe I'll find something to vent misplaced aggression, like the box ghost.' Danny got up and left through the back door, avoiding the adults and mostly Vlad.
---
The park was quiet. The street lamps were just flickering on, their beams reflecting the green in his eyes. The looming shapes of the playground equipment might seem spooky to normal kids, but after seeing as many ghosts as he had, one got used to the dark.
The swings rocked gently in the wind as if ghosts were in them, and the trees swayed gently.
Danny sunk into the dewing grass and let his mind wander where it willed. 'Vlad isn't a threat at the moment, if he were planning anything harmful, there were several hours in which he cold have done it. Unless he implanted something in me. I think he would have said something about it though.'
Sam and Tuck had dropped by earlier to check on him and tell him of the events that occurred while he was unconscious. 'That woman had shown up again. Next time I want answers. She said I could have blown up. I wonder if she was telling the truth…
Danny stared up into the sky, watching clouds float by in the wind. 'And what is up with these dreams I've been having. I'm half tempted to tell Jazz everything and let her figure them out. Maybe Clock Work knows something about them; after all, he was in one.'
The hairs on the back of Danny's neck prickled and he thought he felt a ghost. 'No not a ghost, it's the same feeling as Tomowashi, but deader somehow.'
When he heard footsteps he jumped to his feet. His eyes glowed as he saw a young girl holding a teddy bear walking up. She wore a white dress and her eyes flickered blue in the lamp light. Shadow darkened her hair and skin but he thought they looked light in color.
"Who are you." Danny's foul mood colored his voice.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but you are coming with me." The bear's eyes glowed red.
The dark tone in her voice threw him off. Something didn't feel right. He had to fight his instincts in order to keep himself in place. He took a deep breath before reply, "Where would you be taking me?"
The girl frowned, "Back to the base. Now come."
Something was very wrong here. The bear's eyes seemed alive and the air trembled with her energy. Suddenly he preferred Vlad's attempts to make Danny join him. "I think it's time for me to go home now." he said as he took a step back.
There as a subtle movement behind him and slowly he turned around. He saw several bodies, half rotten with bones gleaming, stumbling toward him on unsteady feet. "That's not good."
He ducked as the closest swung its arm at him. From his lowered stance, he blasted the thing in the rib cage. Bone and bits of flesh splattered everywhere, some falling in his hair. The legs were still standing, and he got kicked in the face.
Rolling backward he landed at the girl's feet. She was smiling at his pain. "No matter how many times you break my toys, they will still come after you. Do you give up yet?"
"I don't want to go with you." Danny fought down panic. "You're crazy"
A skeletal hand grabbed his ankle; the right one of the rotting body he just blew up. "You don't have a chance."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the bodies advancing. He didn't want to transform. Last time he passed out, but the ectoblast didn't bother him, so maybe he should take his chances. He saw a rusted ax materialized in one of the skeleton's hands, and it swung down with great force toward him.
The ax split the ground where he was, "Intangibility, check." he said as he flew up behind them. The girl looked like she was going to throw a temper tantrum. The skeletons turned around and started moaning and stumbling toward him.
Danny turned tail and ran. He did not want those things touching him. A squeeze around his ankle told him that he couldn't phase though them. Running was higher on his list than worrying about the hand attached to his ankle. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the skeletons were gaining on him.
'They are a lot faster than they look.' His muscles were cramping, breath came in needle sharp gasps to his lungs. There was no way he could out run his pursuers. With no other choice he stopped to face them.
"Going ghost!" Cold rings washed over him like spring water. The power from his ghost form flowed through him, dispelling the fire in his muscles. There was no time to celebrate his success.
A blast left his hand and hit the closest skeleton in the head. Its skull flung back and rolled next to the swing set, leaving a little trail brains and blood. The body kept on advancing in that stumbling pace, not even slowing down. The pair of legs from earlier had started to reassemble, bone and pieces of flesh flying over to rebuild its upper torso.
The hand around his ankle and the flesh in his hair tugged toward it original body. A blast took care of the hand, leaving blood stains on his boot.
"One, two, three, four, five. That is hardly fair little girl." he called over to her.
"I'm not little!" She floated over, still holding her giant bear, and landed behind the line of skeletons. The skull flew over and reattached itself to its body. "And my name is Checka."
'Mindlessly blasting these things is not going to work. Best to make a quick exit.' After taking a deep breath, he unleashed his most powerful attack. Much like a sonic wave passing through, the energy enhanced sound shattered the bones; and rotting flesh splattered across the park. Dried blood and green goo clung to the trees, swings and grass. Checka and her bear were thrown back as well. She landed in a puddle of the parks latest decorations.
Danny, weakened but still standing, turned around and flew home as fast as he could. But not without a few last words. "Good luck pulling your selves back together. I'd stick around, but I got to get home. Bye."
Checka sat up and pulled her bear onto her lap. "He is stronger than I thought Silicon. Master will be pleased. Next time, we won't hold back. He broke my toys, so now I will have to break him." She smiled. "Master said that he wanted the boy alive, but he didn't say how many pieces he had to be in."