Chapter 6: Clinic Confrontation
Danny frowned as he assessed the situation and started looking for a way to get into the pharmacy. Unfortunately, all he found was an old newspaper, some energy bars, and two batteries. He handed what little food he found to the kids and noticed Jimmy and AJ were talking about the device the bald boy was holding. As Danny approached, the device started beeping again, causing AJ to jump back.
"What is that?" Danny asked.
"It's a special detector that can detect a ghosts' ectoplasmic signature and it can detect traces of ectoplasm in humans, telling us if they're infected or not," Jimmy explained. "AJ made it himself."
"Really?" Danny gasped and he looked to the boy, who was still eyeing him fearfully.
"What I don't understand is why it keeps going off around you." Jimmy mused out loud. "It keeps saying up as you being a ghost, not an infected." Danny frowned in thought when his eyes widened with an idea. He pulled out his sword and moved it in front of the scanner, causing it to beep again.
"Where did you get that?" Bucky asked.
"When the car I was in crashed and I woke up I was attacked by the driver and this sword was lying on the ground nearby, I grabbed it and it has saved mine and other people's life several times now." He smiled.
"Those things use weapons like that." Vicky spat.
"Well, we're using it now." Danny glared as he stood up and started looking around again. He noticed Valerie was still messing with the old radio. "So, how'd you end up here alone?" He asked.
"Those creeps, or ghouls or whatever the hell they are, they were pulling our car apart and that guy, SpongeBob, just came to the rescue." She explained as her expression fell and tears welled up in her eyes. "My dad was eaten about five feet away from me, and I would've joined him in death if it wasn't for that dork on watch over there."
"I'm sorry," Danny said before looking to the doors where SpongeBob was standing. "That guy saved you?"
"Yeah, can you believe it?"
"You can never tell who the heroic ones are gonna be, I suppose." She laughed bitterly as she put the radio down.
"Let me have a look at that thing," Danny said as he picked it up. He flipped the radio around, opened the battery door, and saw that there were no batteries in it, so he took out the batteries he had found and smiled when they fit in. As he closed the battery door he pulled up the antenna, turned up the volume, and pressed the 'on' button. The radio buzzed to life and Danny placed it back on the table.
"You fixed it!" Valerie gasped as a smile spread across her face.
"As the invasion of the unknown creatures and the virus they've brought her continues to spread global unchallenged, the estimated death toll continues to skyrocket." A man exclaimed. "Action News urges you to stay indoors, and avoid any contact with individuals you suspect may have been infected."
"The station is okay!" SpongeBob cried, a hopeful tone in his voice.
"In the event of a full... uh, my producer is now telling me that we have to get off the air; Action News wishes you and your loved ones... God bless you all." The man said before the broadcast cut out with a burst of static.
"Oh, God," Val whispered in shock. SpongeBob looked ready to throw up as he paled and backed away. Danny decided that he had heard enough and went to check on everyone else. He walked over to check on Nicky and the Dinklebergs and noticed the couple were whispering about something.
"We can't let anything happen to us or these kids." Mrs. Dinkleberg said.
"I know, hon." Her husband said as he put his arm around her. "We just need to get somewhere secure until this mess is over, soon the army will do its job and we can all go back to our lives; try to get some rest, hon.
"How can I with those things out there?" She hissed.
"Hey man." Bucky suddenly said to the teen, startling him. "You really gave that bitch hell."
"Yeah; I was ready to tear the girl's head off." Danny chuckled and saw Chester and Timmy huddled in a corner near where Tootie and her mother were. "How's Chester doing?"
"He's okay, it was just a shock."
"We're lucky as hell nobody got nabbed on the way in here."
"No kidding." Bucky sighed. "How're your boys doing?"
"They're good, I think." He said, looking over at said boys.
"They tough."
"They're just children, Bucky." He glared.
"Didn't ya say they both spent days survivin all on their own? It's not just any children can do a thing like that." He smirked. Danny scowled before walking away, and straight into Vicky, who was still pacing around the room. The two teenagers glared at each other for a few moments before the dark-haired boy glanced at her mother on the ground.
"What's wrong with her?"
"She's got a pathetic heart condition." She scoffed. "She takes nitroglycerin tablets pretty regularly; I've seen a few bad attacks that she couldn't get over and my dad needed to take her to the hospital, but that's not really an option right now."
"Was anyone here when you guys got here?"
"No, this place was pretty wrecked, but we had to pull a couple of bodies out of the office." She explained.
"What do you think about all this?"
"What is there to think?" She snarled. "Ghosts are walking around, slaughtering people, and turning them into monsters!"
"So, how did you end up here?" He glared.
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean is how did you end up in a pharmacy in Amity Park when the kids you were meant to be looking after were left abandoned in Dimsdale?!" He shouted, causing a couple of people to look over. Vicky glared at him before turning away.
"I was upstairs getting a bath ready for myself when I heard that girl Chloe screaming downstairs, I ran down and saw one of those things tearing into her." She explained. "I ran out of the front door and saw dozens of them walking around the street and flying over my head, I ran back home and my Mom dragged me and Tootie into the car and we just drove."
"What about Timmy and Jimmy?" Danny snarled.
"I didn't know where the boys were, they weren't downstairs when I ran down and saw Chloe getting killed." She hissed. "I thought they were outside playing somewhere and had been killed!"
"That's funny because I found them both hiding in a treehouse when I was getting out of a car crash." He roared. "They'd been surviving by themselves, thinking that you had been killed and that's why you didn't come and get them, not that you ran away and left them to die!"
"What was I supposed to do?! What would you have done in my position?! We don't all have fancy ghost swords to protect us!"
"Sword or no sword, I would have at least the guts to make sure the boys were dead before running off; if I hadn't of found them, who knows what could have happened to them!"
"That's enough! The last thing we need are those things coming back." Bucky exclaimed as he got between them both. Danny continued to scowl at her before walking away to check on Timmy.
"Hey there." He smiled as he knelt to the boy's level.
"Hi." Timmy smiled.
"Any word from Kwan?" He asked.
"Nothing." Timmy frowned. "Is he okay?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it, you're doing a good job," Danny reassured the boy as he stood back up. He noticed an office and remembered what Vicky said about dragging bodies out of there, so he knew it was somewhat safe. As he cautiously walked into the office, he took notice that both Jimmy and Timmy were following close behind him, but it didn't worry him...
They stepped inside but the only thing there was a desk, a TV that was probably broken, a door that led to the back alley and a mattress covered in blood. Danny saw a door that led into the pharmacy, but when he tried the door he growled when it was locked. He took a deep breath to calm himself down when he saw that Jimmy and Timmy were staring at him.
"Everyone out there seems alright to you?" He asked them.
"Yeah." Timmy shrugged.
"Well, maybe not Vicky's mom," Jimmy added.
"Don't worry, we'll keep an eye on her." He reassured, but frown when he saw that fear in their eyes. "Hey, what's wrong?"
"There was that thing in the school," Jimmy muttered. "It tried to get us."
"I know." Danny sighed, not wanting to remember that awful image of Dolores dying in her son's arms.
"But you stopped it," Timmy said.
"Yeah, I did."
"Can you do that more often?" Jimmy asked hopefully.
"Well, I'm not gonna go looking for them." He frowned. "But I'm gonna try."
"Good." Timmy smiled. Danny smiled at them as he got up and went to pick up a wooden pallet blocking the door to the ally, and a cane came falling out from behind it. Danny frowned as he leaned the pallet against the wall next to the door and picked up the cane.
"What's that?" Timmy asked.
"It's a cane, Turner." Jimmy frowned.
"It belonged to the owner of this clinic," Danny explained. "He'd zip around here on it from time to time."
"Was he sick?" Timmy asked.
"No, I think he was okay." He smiled. "I actually saw him hit shoplifters with it; this cane's protected this place better than any guard dog ever could, plus, he knew how to make it look cool, like you with your hat." He smiled at Timmy as he leaned the cane against the wall near the pallet.
"My parents gave it to me." He glared. "They thought I was gonna be a girl so basically all my clothes were pink."
"With a squeaky voice like that, I don't blame them." Jimmy grinned.
"Shut it Nerdtron," Timmy growled and Danny laughed as the bucked tooth boy turned a few shades of red. After a few moments, Danny finally stopped laughing and knelt next to them both.
"How are you doing with everything outside?" He eventually asked.
"It's not good." Jimmy frowned, looking to his shoes.
"But I think it'll be okay; as Bucky said, the army will do its thing and we can all go home," Timmy added hopefully. Jimmy glared and was about to say something, but a look from Danny stopped him.
"What about you?" Jimmy suddenly asked the teen. "Don't you have a family to go home to?"
"Let's not talk about that," Danny quickly said before giving them a weak smile. "Do either of you play sports?"
"I play volleyball, but I don't like it." Timmy scowled.
"I'm not crazy about it either." Danny chuckled.
"Why don't you want to talk about your family?" Jimmy frowned, not liking how Danny was trying to change the subject. "Do they, like...hate you or something?" He gulped. Danny froze for a brief moment before looking away from the kids.
"It's... It's just complicated, that's all." He quietly said.
"Why? Did you fight? I know I fight with my parents sometimes." Timmy said.
"Yeah, we got into a fight." He replied before giving them a scowl. "Look, I've got no idea where my family is anymore and I just wish things would've been different before all this happened; I got into their lab and caused some trouble, and then we didn't talk for a while, but let's just keep that between you two and me for now, okay?" He asked and they nodded
"Danny?"
"Yeah?"
"What if our parents go by to my house and we're not there?" Timmy unexpectedly asked, throwing the teen off guard.
"I... don't think they will," Danny said belatedly, wincing at the guilty feeling creeping up his spine at the sad, almost devasted, expressions on Jimmy and Timmy's faces. "I mean, they want you both to be safe.; we'll find them if we can." He quickly corrected, only slightly ease their worry.
"I've got my walkie-talkie in case they try that way," Timmy added, smiling feebly.
"Stay close to me until then, okay?" He said firmly and they nodded. Satisfied, Danny started opening the desk drawers and searching for the key, only finding the remote for the TV inside. As he looked around, the folded up picture fell out of his pocket and glided to the ground. Noticing this, Jimmy carefully picked it up and gently unfolding it. He was shocked to see it was of Danny with fully black hair standing in front of a building named Fenton Works.
The teenager looked really happy in the picture.
Standing beside him were two adults in jumpsuits, an older teen with long, orange hair, a goth girl, and a boy holding a PDA. Jimmy was about to say something when the door to the office door suddenly burst open, causing all three of them to jump out of their skins, and Valerie Gray came marching in, a steely expression edged into her face. She and Danny stared each other down for a few seconds before the next five words she spoke shattered Danny's entire resolve.
"I know who you are."...
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Nekocatcat: Don't worry, the answers to whether Danny had powers will be answered very soon! Wanda and Cosmo will also be making an appearance as well, it's just a matter of when. Thank you for reviewing...
