Chapter 12: Violent Reactions

6:00 AM

In an unknown part of the city, we watch as a set of arms throw a black cloth roll onto a kitchen table. The hand unrolls the cloth to reveal a bag with an amber brown bottle inside it, a piece of red tape sealing the top of the bag with, "HOMICIDE - E. DANIELS" written on it. Nearby on the living room couch was a piece of clothing, black with 4 letters on the back of the item laying next to a camera. The arms of the man who owns these items grabbed the vest and flipped it to its front. He pulled a yellow device that looked much like a firearm from the holster then opened one of the pouches also on the front of said vest and grabbed what looked like cartridges. Turning the yellow device on a high pitched whine came from it, the sound denoting some kind of charge was taking place.

The individual who owned this apartment came back to the kitchen table and threw the black cloth aside as he placed the yellow device on the table and proceeded to open the bag with the bottle inside it. He sat the bottle beside the yellow device. From outside our view we hear a cellular phone go off. The phone beeps as the man in the room spoke, "Hey." After a moment of silence - likely because he was listening to his caller - he responded, "Yeah, I got the approval and I got him involved," the voice was bitter as he said that. He continued, "Like I said, I already had it in motion before that."

There was another silence as the man let his caller speak again. He began leaving an assurance, "Don't worry…" a hand came down and released several 12 gauge shotgun shells loaded with deer slugs onto the table, "I'll end the problem." The hand grabbed an envelope from the other side of the table to also sit beside the shotgun shells. On the front of the envelope read, "14 North Moore Street" in handwritten script. The voice spoke one more time to his caller, "För gudarna!"

Ghostbusters HQ

7:45 AM

The rain finally stopped. Everyone was finally getting sleep with the exception of Egon, Old Man Dan, Amy, Eduardo, and Garrett. They had been waiting for Janine to get back with a critical set of items to make an illustration of the issue going on. Since the day before Egon had been extracting information from the dead creatures that laid in the street that once again New York Streets and Sanitation were cleaning up. That wasn't the only thing that was being extracted.

Arms of several of the creatures were brought in from the outside and were now laying on Egon's work table. Old Man Dan was busy using a large hypodermic needle - one likely used on farm livestock - to extract the black toxin that laid inside the arms and talons of the creatures. The older Dan used examination gloves to protect his hands from the material as he stuck the needle into the arms, "These things excrete this crap from glands found on all of their extremities. From what we found if it goes into an open wound or becomes ingested somehow it begins the metamorphosis."

"Metamorphosis?" Eduardo snapped his fingers, "Like what those Gremlin things did in that movie?"

The older Ghostbuster took the needle out and began ejecting the material into a separate vial, "Not quite. It's more like the FEV." After a moment of silence from the room he looked at everyone in the room to see no one knew what he was talking about. He asked, "Has anyone here ever played Fallout?" After another moment of quiet Eduardo knew what he meant, "Oh! You mean that green stuff at the army base that makes Super Mutants, right?" Old Man Dan cortled, "Found the gamer of the group," he finished emptying out the syringe as he continued, "Yeah, it's a lot like that. It actively takes the genetics and starts rearranging the DNA in a pattern that is not consistent with normal human physiology giving any human, or - let's face it - carbon-based lifeform enhanced strength, speed, healing factor, and worse of all, aggression. In animals' cases, it would give the animals the ability to take on human characteristics. It was inconsistent; some would vocalize like a human; others would know how to operate complex machinery including the main shut off for the protection grid of Zero's Containment Unit."

Amy now understood, "So that's why you fired at Artemis?" Old Man Dan nodded, "Yeah." "Question?" Garrett said as he raised his hand, going ahead without being called, "What's this, 'Zero' you keep talking about?" He answered, "This place." Garrett clearly didn't understand as he and Eduardo looked at each other. Old Man Dan explained further, "In my universe, that's what everyone in GBI colloquially calls the original Ghostbusters office; Franchise Zero. This place ended up being the base of operations in lower Manhattan when this stuff started."

"When your counterpart was injured," Egon stated, "we found this very material in his back," he walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a beaker full of green ectoplasm. He walked to the table and placed it down, "We used this sample of base culture to nullify the material into an inert state and it didn't do anything to him."

A look of concern crept onto Old Man Dan's face, "You did what?"

Egon saw the look and saw how that statement spooked him, "Is there something wrong with what I did?"

"You're lucky it didn't creep in or start the mutation process," he stated, a look of worry on him.

Just as Egon was about to ask, Janine walked into the lab with a cardboard box with what looked like ventilation holes in it. Everyone heard squeaking as she walked in looking very displeased, "Do you have any idea what you made me go through getting these stupid things?" She dropped the box onto the work table as she continued her rant, "Do you know what it's like pestering a pet store owner to buy gerbils at 7 o'clock in the morning after another earthquake? Do you know what kind of looks I got doing that?"

Old Man Dan attempted to calm the secretary down, "I'm sorry, Ms. Melnitz, I didn't mean to embarrass you by making you do this, but there's a reason…"

"Will you stop calling me Ms. Melnitz!"

"Forgive me," he had sincerity in his voice as he spoke, "I've always addressed you as Ms. Melnitz. I don't mean to disrespect you." Janine saw the man's face as he was apologizing. She sighed, "I-I know you don't, but I'm not used to you calling me that." "Hey, if I get comfortable calling you Janine then go back home, if I call my Ms. Melnitz Janine, she might come to my office and kick my ass."

Eduardo broke up the interlude, pointing at the box and asking, "What's with the Pet Taxi?" Old Man Dan took that as a point to get to task, "Right." He grabbed a dropper and placed it in the vial full of the toxin, "If anyone has scanning equipment, now's the time," after filling the dropper he opened the box and started reaching in, "Dr. Speng… uh, Egon, if you got a decent size cage, I'm gonna need it." Egon eyed what it was he was doing and decided to abide. Old Man Dan grabbed one of the gerbils from the box and took it out.

Egon grabbed an old rabbit cage and placed it on Roland's workbench. Old Man Dan instructed him to remove anything that was fragile from around the cage. The more instruction the seasoned Ghostbuster threw out, the more confused everyone became. Eduardo crouched down enough to talk quietly to Garrett, "What's he doing?" Garrett shrugged as Amy whispered an answer, "It looks like he's going to give a demonstration of some kind." "We can see that," Garrett said in a hushed voice as well, "but why is he having Egon clear Roland's bench?"

Old Man Dan took the dropper and forced the toxin into the gerbil's mouth. He didn't look comfortable doing it; he knew what was going to become of this little rodent that was meant to be a pet for a child. The worst part was he knew more about the situation than he flat out stated. What he said before about Dan avoiding the mutation process didn't fill Amy with anything other than dread. There was something else to the mutation that she herself hadn't explained to anyone else yet, but Egon knew as well. It was going to have to wait while everyone else was asleep; it was too big an announcement.

The gerbil was squirming around in the older Dan's hand trying to avoid more of the toxin being rammed down its little throat. After he felt enough of the black fluid was fed to the rodent he instructed Egon to stand aside after opening the cage. He placed the animal inside and quickly closed the cage, "We found that the smaller the animal, the less time it took for the mutation to occur," he sighed as he looked back to everyone and spoke in a disheartening voice, "Get your cameras ready, because the show's about to start," he looked to Egon, "If you have safety goggles, glasses, or face shields, you're going to need 'em, too."

As Egon went into his safety equipment cabinet everyone watched the gerbil start to juke around the cage, squealing harshly as it moved around. The creature then flipped onto its back and started rolling around making even worse noises. The furry animal's cries started to make Amy upset as she watched the creature writhe around in pain. Both Eduardo and Garrett winced at the animal's pained squeals as it kept rolling around in agony. Old Man Dan watched with a stone face, not taking any joy in what was happening. Egon walked up with the equipment requested of him and now saw what everyone else was looking at, walking beside Janine and looking at the expression of horror on her face. She spoke to him once she was aware he was there, "Oh, Egon, make him stop it!"

Egon saw what was happening. He didn't like it either, but he knew in the name of science it had to be done. He spoke softly to his secretary, "I don't think it can be stopped." After another minute of watching the animal flip back and forth on its back, the animal stopped, silence filling the room. Almost as immediately Old Man Dan pulled the flat device he had out of his pocket and opened something that looked like a timer. He started it counting down as he walked back to the back of the room and grabbed his Proton Pack. Putting the device into his front tee-shirt pocket he then strapped the pack on.

Watching him draw the thrower on the pack he started the main systems up and checked the systems over, Amy walked up to him, "What are you doing? Why did you make that little gerbil suffer like that?" As he looked the thrower over the old man stated with lementation in his voice, "If you think I'm enjoying this, then you're demented. If you think I want to do this, you're sick," he started the thrower up then looked at her, "I'm about to do something I take no pride in doing, but because it's so rampant in my world I have to show you the consequences of screwing up. If you wanna report my ass to the ASPCA, be my guest, but what I'm about to demonstrate scared the everloving fuck out of all us when we did this thinking it was a cure," he looked to Egon and raised the modified otherworldly device in his hands to show him, "Do you know what this cylinder on the side of the thrower is used for?"

Egon had been eyeing the equipment for some time. He noticed the difference in the appearance of the equipment and took an educated deduction on its function, "It's part of your Plasm Distribution System." Old Dan nodded as he directed himself to the rest of the people in the lab, "For those playing the home game, this is a miniaturized Slime Blower. I'm to bet dollars to donuts that the crap in that beaker is the same in my ectoplasm reservoir," the device in his front pocket beeped, prompting him to release one of the grips on his thrower and grab it to look. The timer had a few seconds left. He placed the device back into the front pocket and tended to the thrower again.

Pressing a button on the stalk of the thrower head the red cyclotron lights turned off as the cyclotron drum filled with green slime, the CRT emitters changing to green as the windows filled. A clear tube popped out of the cylinder on the top left side of the pack, it also filled with slime. He began walking toward the cage, grabbing a pair of goggles out of Egon's hand and putting them on one-handed. He instructed everyone, "Put the goggles on. Now!"

Garrett complained as he was handed a pair of goggles and started putting them on, "What's the li'l bugger gonna do, wake back up and barf pea soup at us?"

Amy immediately grabbed the goggles and put them on as she explained, "You don't understand, Garrett, when we saw Hacker at the hospital, he grew violent and…" before she could say more the device in Old Man Dan's pocket beeped again with a longer, more sustained beep. Everyone in the room started to walk closer, now equipped with goggles over their eyes. Old Dan stopped as he noticed all of them closing in, "Stay back!" The gerbil's eyes opened…

They glowed green.

The rodent started bouncing around the confines of the cage swiftly and violently causing the cage to slide back and forth. It even hopped off the bench a few times before landing back down. The wire mesh of the cage bent outward as the animal fought to escape, its normally harmless squeaks sounding more like growls and roars. The gerbil stopped moving to notice that the man in the pack before him was approaching. It growled in anticipation of the man doing something. Old Man Dan had a steely resolve that made him approach with no fear in his eyes. The gerbil's appearance altered extensively aside from the green eyes. Its fur darkened; its sheer mass at the very least doubled; its teeth grew longer; its claws sharper to a point. It drooled as the man approached.

Old Man Dan looked at what was a cute little pet turned into a monster. He looked at the little thing with remorse in his eyes as well as his voice, "I'm gonna go to hell for this," he armed the thrower and disengaged the safety as he pointed it at the cage, "but what I do to you may save all of us. It's not in vain, little guy. I'm sorry." He activated the blower nozzle and covered the creature in green ectoplasm. After the creature was sufficiently coated in slime the gerbil started crying out in pain again as now the roars it put off sounded more disturbing than before. The creature smoked as it was being burned in some way.

Old Man Dan shut down the pack and started quickly backing up. They watched as what looked like light started emitting from the gerbil's body as some kind of violent reaction took place. Everyone in the room started backing up as they witnessed the creature make more and more ear-splitting noises. Eduardo's eyes were wide as the horror took place before him, "What the hell's happening, man?!" the light reached its peak…

The gerbil's body went up in a violent explosion. The cage blew apart as the force also broke the workbench in half. Amy screamed and hid behind Old Man Dan, Janine doing the same to Egon. Garrett and Eduardo covered their faces with their arms as they felt the shockwave pass them. After it was all said and done and everything died down there wasn't anything left of the gerbil. Old Man Dan stated a conclusion, sighing at the horrible thing he had just done, "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never use the base ectoplasm on someone or something that's been mutated," everyone unshielded themselves to look at the carnage as he punctuated that statement, "If my other self was transformed and you attempted to use it on him, not only would you have signed his death warrant, you'd have an explosion that would have taken out this whole building."

Garrett took off the goggles, "Good God!" He rolled forward to look at the destruction of the bench and the cage. He picked up a piece of said cage as he commented, "Poor li'l guy went up like a furry grenade!"

Eduardo looked at the older Ghostbuster in disgust, "You knew this was gonna happen! That means you did it once already!" Old Dan reluctantly nodded his head, "Green Team found a stray pitbull that was mutated in their sector. It was literally walking around on its hind legs and smoking a cigar when they intercepted it and hosed it down. After the dog…" he shrugged, avoiding the obvious explanation of the dog's demise, "...we realized once the toxin was in the system and the DNA was accelerated there's a very high energy feedback that starts fighting against the slime, but the slime is also fighting against high metabolic output of the toxin's effects. At one point it reaches a type of proto-ecto critical mass, then…" he put his balled up fists together then unfurled his fingers as he moved his hands apart, illustrating an explosion. He finished with one piece of information, "Depending on the biodensity of the subject the explosion size is relative to the size of the overall mass; the larger the animal, the bigger the boom."

Garrett dropped the cage piece and looked back, "I can only imagine what would happen if the Army used this like a weapon." Old Dan sighed again, "Why ya think we kept telling the governor to keep the New York National Guard out of the city?" Egon walked to the destroyed bench and adjusted his glasses to get a better look at the carnage asking as he did, "Have you found a way to reverse the process?" Old Man Dan shook his head, "No. The R&D boys have been tearing their hair out for nearly three months trying to make a solution work. The best we figured, we find the source of the creatures infecting people and stop it there. Dr. Stantz has been theorizing another dimension was a route to look into, but we didn't know where to start."

Amy had taken her computer out and started running back all of the data she collected as she also inquired, "Does the ectoplasm affect the Man-Bats in the same manner?" "No," the older man hooked his thrower back on the pack as he explained, "All they do is act as carriers. They're not affected either emotionally or reactively like what I just demonstrated. If you hit them before they attack someone it'll neutralize what their glands have created, but that's as far as it goes. They still have razor sharp claws, so we still end up injured even with a preemptive strike." It was at that moment he noticed the computer Amy was working on. He looked at it as she played everything that happened back, "What the hell kinda palm-top computer is that? You're displaying data like they have at CERN."

Before Amy could explain Kylie walked into the lab half asleep, "Okay, I've been sent in here because we heard something explode. Should we worry?" She right after started smelling something strange. It was pungent, "Ugh, why's it smell like someone set a dirty rabbit cage on fire?"

Old Man Dan looked at Egon, "Huh. Maybe you should open a window."

Back in the bunk room Dan once again laid face down beside Lita while sitting next to her bunk. He couldn't be away from her. Even with the demonstration being done in the lab he didn't bother checking on it. He was asleep. He was so tired after the strange arrival of his other self, another fight with the creatures, his other self shooting at Artemis, and everything leading up to this including Lita's outburst and subsequent kidnapping. There he sat, beside Lita, worn out and worried while having a dream…

He found himself in a battlefield. The sky was orange and the sounds of screams were ever growing in volume along with the clanging of metal on metal. Dan looked down to himself and found himself in his Jupiter Knight armor; a hunter green colored armor modeled between medieval and samurai armor with a tint of technological flare. It was trimmed in magenta with the symbol of Jupiter stamped in a shoulder guard. Dan knew exactly where he was, "Oh, no. Not again!" He gripped his throat. He didn't speak in his normal Chicagoan accent; he spoke with a Scottish one instead.

The surface of Jupiter was attacked vastly and expediently. The Negaverse had attacked without any warning as he watched hordes of his own soldiers go up against only a few of Queen Beryl's subjects including one of her elite Shadow Warriors. The beams of energy that were sent out from the invading creatures took out swaths of the planet Jupiter's forces. Standing along the side of Mount Vronti watching the carnage he felt this overwhelming urge to look skyward. Overhead was the moon Europa. Europa was the satellite base of the Jupiter Kingdom. He knew his Princess was on Earth's Moon acting as the protector to Princess Serenity, but the rest of the Royals were still gathering their means to flee and were in fact on the brink of being attacked themselves. He had to hold the line as long as he could to ensure the family managed to escape. What he saw as he looked up only made his heart clench.

A bright set of flashes emanated from the surface of the moon, spreading outward. Dan - with his modern understanding - saw it like multiple nuclear explosions detonating on the surface. He felt it - knew it in his heart…

The Royals just perished.

"No. No!" A large explosion took place in the battlefield before him as his soldiers started fleeing themselves, likely witnessing the same thing he did above. He jumped into the air, almost hovering to get as far above Mount Vronti as he could. Mount Vronti was in fact a dormant volcano. He felt compelled to perform an action. He put his hands together and started to utter… utter the words… it was fading… fading…

Dan awoke with a jolt. He looked at Lita and saw she was still unconscious, recovering from healing him. As the days grew, it seemed his dreams started to become more vivid. After they met the nightmares Jedite inflicted on him went away, but every so often he would see a different nightmare. After Darien awoke his memories it seemed like they were incomplete. It was spotty in places. He remembered when he was being grabbed Darien had just been forcefully de-possessed by Sailor Jupiter using her powers to enhance his Proton Pack's output while he used a trap to capture the energy controlling him. He was holding Dan's arm performing the reawakening, but something had to have gone wrong. There were large pieces of his memory missing as though maybe Darien was losing strength to completely unlock his mind. He knew enough to let him use his power, but he has no context to the past.

Eduardo was extremely angry at Darien. It was like there was more to the memories than he himself had to the situation. After Eduardo came back from fighting the Draugr and protecting Sailor Venus as her knight he had been acting differently. More aggressive being at the top of that list. He wasn't sure why he was angry, but hearing Darien unlocked his mind had a lot to do with it.

Dan sat up and rubbed his eyes moving down to his beard. He sighed as he leaned back in the chair he was sitting in when he heard the bunk room door open. He turned back and saw Kylie walking in. She stopped as she saw the man look at her, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bug ya." "No, no," he began, "I just woke back up. What time is it?"

Kylie saw the bags under the man's eyes. After a trying and strange night she was surprised he was even awake. Eduardo told her he passed out while helping Serena; from the sound of it it was a panic attack. Something was weighing on his mind and it made her not want to ask him for anything.

But ask of him she had to. After checking on the lab it was time to figure out where the Cult that was causing all of this was hiding. She began by answering him, "Twenty after eight. Egon wants us to start looking into the cult. We got the location, we just need to find the people. We need your help with that; you got up close and personal with 'em."

After a moment of thought he nodded, "Alright. Throw a pot of super-strong coffee on for me," he turned back in his seat and looked over Lita again, "I'll be there in a few." Kylie watched as he gently grabbed the unconscious woman's hand and started to rub it. She felt even more guilty for what she did just a few nights ago. Here was a man and a woman that loved each other so much they feared hurting each other, and here she was inadvertently getting in the middle of their relationship. On top of that the fear of his secrets getting out only added to the tension and her eventual belief of betrayal. Her and Garrett screwed up hard fanning those flames. Even after it all, they felt the same for each other. It was a very strong love.

She turned to walk away only to stop and look back for a moment. After dealing with the other Dan that was now in the firehouse, it showed her the extent of his loyalty and how he responded to being treated like a disposable commodity. He was human, and what little Old Man Dan stated about himself that morning during the onslaught showed a broken man who had lost something. Seeing the before of her universe's Dan and the potential after of Old Man Dan made her realize he judged himself very harshly. He already had himself to blame; maybe she shouldn't help him blame himself. She walked out and gently closed the door behind her.