"Jazz, honey?"
Jazz jerked awake—not that she'd been asleep, of course—and blinked blearily. It took her a moment to realize that her mom had yelled from downstairs.
"Yeah?" she called back, trying to rub the sleep out of her eyes. Ugh. Being half-ghost was seriously exhausting. Maybe she should ask Phantom if it's normal for her powers to cost so much energy.
"Can you come down, sweetie?"
She pushed herself to her feet, walking to the top of the stairs. "Yeah, Mom?"
"Pack your bags! I got an invite to a mother-daughter science symposium in Florida! Doesn't that sound fun?"
Jazz perked up further. "A mother-daughter science symposium? When is it?"
"This weekend. Don't worry about homework—if you don't have enough time to finish it, I'll make sure to write a note for your teachers."
"That sounds great, Mom." Jazz grinned at her. Since she'd become half-ghost, she hadn't spent much time around her family. Danny was always busy with Sam and Tucker, and her parents were so busy with all that ghost stuff… This was a great opportunity!
Her dad joined her mom, bumping her gently. Or, well. As gently as Jack Fenton could. "And, to make sure you'll be protected from rogue ghost attacks on the road, I made this." He held out an invention of some sort, a segmented metal belt with a lock in the front. "I'm calling it the Specter Deflector! It needs a little more work, but it'll be ready before you leave. It'll repel and weaken any ghost who comes in direct contact with you!"
Maddie took the belt, looking it over admiringly. "Ooh. Thanks, hon." She pressed a kiss against his cheek. "You're the best."
"I'll go pack my stuff!" Jazz shouted at them, already turning around. Look, she could fight ghosts all day, but watching her parents get all lovey-dovey? No thanks.
Besides, she could be sure they were distracted now. This was a perfect opportunity to go talk with Phantom, let him know that she would be gone for the weekend. Hopefully it wouldn't be like last time, but, well. What were the chances that Vlad would ruin another family-bonding weekend trip for her?
She shifted to her ghost form with ease, turned herself invisible and intangible to fly the short distance to Phantom unnoticed. As usual, he was hiding on a rooftop nearby; it was still too early for him to patrol Amity.
"Hey Jazz," he greeted her when she dropped her invisibility. "What's up?"
"Mom got an invite for a mother-daughter symposium this weekend, so I was hoping you would be fine with covering the ghost attacks for me," she explained. "I could really use some time to just… bond with my family."
"Of course, always," Phantom immediately assured her, before he frowned. "Wait. Mother-daughter symposium… Organized by DALV?"
"I… don't know?" Her core thrummed with concern. "Why? What's wrong with it?"
He shook his head dispassionately. "Try flipping the name around."
"DALV… oh my god." She groaned loudly. "Really, Vlad? God, I can't believe I didn't catch that. Is he going to attack Mom, or something?"
"Well, besides the fact that he's going to crash your private plane conveniently near his mansion with no phone so he can woo Mom and convince you to join him?" Phantom shrugged, faux casual. "Nah, you two will be fine. But in my universe he used my absence to send vicious ghosts after Dad."
"Oh." She looked down, watched her feet shuffle uncertainly on the rooftop. "So you… won't come with? Just to be sure Vlad won't do anything?"
Phantom sighed, deep and pensive. "I… don't think it would be a good idea. Dad made it through Vlad's attack in my universe, but I'm not sure how. I just… I don't want to risk it not panning out the same, y'know? Besides, you're smarter than me, and more competent than me, and better trained than me. You'll be fine. Trust yourself, Jazz."
She made a face. Trust herself? She wasn't half as competent a fighter as Phantom. There was no way she could stand up against Vlad, if push came to shove. "Yeah, alright," she said anyway. "I get it. If I asked you to come along, and when we got back we discovered that… that." She paused.
"Yeah, exactly," Phantom said, clearly knowing what she was trying to say. "Look. I know that it's… hard, to be half-ghost. Your only examples of other half-ghosts have years of experience over you, so you'll always feel like you're just… plodding along. That you're not as good as them. I know. I remember what it was like. I'm pretty sure that, in my original universe, this was the weekend that I had planned to figure out duplication, because I felt so bad that Vlad could do it and I couldn't. But trust me, Jazz, when I say you're way better than I was."
She scoffed disbelievingly.
"No, really." He nudged her, gently. "Sam and Tucker and I were training, right? A general check-up on my powers, how good everything was, down in the lab. During the intangibility test I hit the wall at full speed, because I didn't quite have a good enough grip on it yet. Forget making a decent shield. I know that it's hard not to compare yourself to my current level, Jazz, but I'm still more than two years ahead of you. You'll get there."
He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. It was more comforting than it had any right to be. "Besides, strength isn't everything. Your greatest advantage over me will always be your intelligence, Jazz, and don't forget it. Not everything is about punching your way out of a bad situation."
"Alright." And she tried to let herself believe it, really. "You've convinced me. If it comes down to it, I'll fight Vlad with my smarts."
"There you go!" He grinned at her, his green eyes vibrant and sparkling. "And I know just where to start! Let me know when Dad finishes the Specter Deflector, will you? I know how to tweak its coding so it ignores certain ecto-signatures, so I can make sure it doesn't work on us."
She smiled back. "That sounds great. Thank you, Phantom."
"Don't mention it," he said. His grin was almost completely genuine.
Jazz watched her Mom shear through some more plants with the machete she (apparently) had hidden in her boot. Phantom had said that they would be alright, but still… she wasn't looking forward to whatever might come next.
Her mom gasped, and Jazz jerked her eyes back forward. In front of them laid a large building, ornate and grand.
Vlad's mansion.
"Or maybe we could stay at this ritzy mountain chalet," Maddie suggested, humor in her tone. "I'm open."
Jazz opened her mouth to reply, but a horn honked and she shut her mouth. A golf cart pulled up, driven by no one else but…
"Vlad Masters?" Maddie gasped.
"Oh, what an amazing, unexpected, and totally unplanned surprise," he purred back, leaning over the steering wheel. "Might I offer you two a stay in my luxurious chalet?"
Maddie laughed, climbing into the seat next to Vlad. "Well, if you insist…"
Looked like they were, in fact, doing this. Jazz rolled her eyes but climbed into the back of the golf cart, letting Vlad drive them back to the mansion. Even if Phantom was sure that Vlad wouldn't harm her mom, she still intended to stay close and be sure. Although Maddie was wearing the Specter Deflector, so she would probably be fine. Assuming it worked, which, knowing her dad, wasn't guaranteed.
Vlad led them into a large cozy room, with stupendously large chairs and hunting trophies all along the wall. Vlad was a hunter? Color her surprised.
"So, what brings you two to these parts?" Vlad asked, watching them wander around in the room. "Not that I am unhappy to see you two, of course, but we are quite far from Amity Park."
Jazz watched her mom pull a book from a shelf, glancing through it. "You would never believe it," Maddie said, not looking up. "We were on our way to this symposium, and our pilot forced us out of the plane right over your house."
"Yes, what a rather convenient coincidence." Jazz scoffed.
Vlad narrowed his eyes at her. "Yes, you two are certainly lucky to have landed so nearby. But…" He slid closer to Maddie, leaning on the bookshelf next to her. "Maddie, I'm so glad you're here. It gives me the chance to apologize for Jack's behavior at our college reunion."
"Wasn't Dad possessed by a ghost?" Jazz asked, tone light. Her mom had barely even glanced at Vlad. "A filthy, putrid piece of ectoplasm?"
Vlad shot her another glare, his eyes briefly flaring red. He then turned back, snapping Maddie's book shut and taking it out of her hand entirely. Rude.
"Well," Vlad said laconically, "If he hadn't been so weak, perhaps that never would have happened, hm?"
"Now, Vlad, Jack might be a bumbler, but he means well." Maddie looked at him briefly, before turning back to the bookshelves.
Vlad rolled his eyes, sliding the book in his hands back into place. "I know, Maddie. And I've forgiven him for many things: causing the accident that ruined my life, stealing you, the backwash incident—"
"Whoa, back up." Maddie jerked back to attention, her voice a little shrill. She was looking right at Vlad, now. "What was that?"
He blinked at her, innocently. "Causing the accident that ruined my life?"
Her eyes narrowed. "No, after that."
"The… backwash incident?" he tried.
Maddie growled exasperatedly, gesturing with a hand. "No. In the middle!"
"Oh, the stealing you part?" Vlad's eyes went big, like he'd been surprised, before leaning closer to Maddie. "Ah, you always could see right through me."
Jazz was pleased to see her mom jerk backwards, looking rather uncomfortable. Unfortunately, Vlad didn't leave it at that.
"Oh, Maddie, I'm just going to come right out with it. Please dump Jack and stay here. You and Jazz both can. What do you say?"
It was like her mom had been frozen solid. Her hands had balled into tight fists, her shoulders hard and tense. She looked a second away from punching Vlad.
"Jazz," Maddie said, voice low and flat, "Come on, we're leaving."
And leave, she did. Maddie whirled around, stomping back towards the exit of the mansion. Jazz quickly followed after her, shooting a worried glance towards the windows. It had gone dark outside. They would have to rough it through the night anyway.
Hurried footsteps chased after them, but Vlad stopped in the doorway.
"Mark my words, Maddie!" he shouted after them, his voice loud in the quiet woods. "Nobody says no to Vlad Masters! You will rue the day that you spurned my affection!"
"What a creep," Jazz muttered under her breath.
They wandered deeper into the woods, where her mom set up a camp with frightening efficiency. Before Jazz knew it, a wooden shelter had been set up, and a campfire roared in front of her.
Maddie sat down next to her, the light of the fire glinting off of her metal belt. "Jazz, this weekend certainly isn't turning out like I planned. But we're spending it together, and that just means the world to me."
Carefully, she placed her hand on Jazz'. It tingled, slightly, a barely-there buzz. Jazz supposed that the Specter Deflector picked up on the ambient ectoplasm around her.
"I know," she told her mom, smiling softly. "I'm glad that we're out here together, too."
"Let's just get some sleep, and we'll figure out what to do next tomorrow." Maddie stood up, grabbing both sleeping bags and dragging them into the shelter.
Jazz followed her, taking her own sleeping bag and lying down. "Good night, Mom."
"Good night, Jazz. I love you."
She smiled, softly, her eyes closed. "Love you too."
Of course, the peace didn't last. Jazz had barely closed her eyes before her core stirred, her ghost sense misting out of her mouth.
She was just considering if she could get away with taking care of it without her mom noticing when a loud roar broke the quiet. Maddie jerked upright immediately, her head turning towards the entrance of the shelter. Jazz followed her gaze, and, oh.
In the opening of the shelter, she could see a short, curled leg, with enormous claws. It looked like a bear's, except that this bear glowed and had bright green fur.
"Ghost," her mom muttered unnecessarily. "I'll take care of it."
"Uh. Okay?" Jazz stayed hunkered down, watching her mom dig through her utility belt, before she pulled out a faintly glowing rope. "You have weapons in there?"
"Of course I do." Maddie raised a questioning eyebrow. "But this is just phase-proof rope. I'll tie it down and make sure there aren't more."
"Sounds good," she said. And it did, she supposed. She just had to trust her mom to handle it. It would be fine, right? Maddie was an experienced ghost hunter. She could handle a single animal ghost.
Maddie jumped out of the shelter with the rope between her hands, tripping up the ghost in the same movement. For a brief moment, Jazz could see the whole animal. It really was a bear, except even bigger than regular bears, with six arms and bright red eyes.
Before she could consider jumping in and helping, her Mom had the animal pinned. The Specter Deflector buzzed loudly, sparks dancing over Maddie's jumpsuit and into the bear. She tied it up with the ecto-rope like it was nothing.
Huh. Looked like the Specter Deflector worked fine. That was good to know.
Jazz crept out of the shelter as well, sidling up close to Maddie. "Mom, that was awesome!"
"Oh, Jazz, thank you." Maddie smiled down at her, lit by the dying fire. For a moment, Jazz' core felt full, rumbling pleasantly.
And then her ghost sense went off again, and she just barely held in the cold mist that formed.
Luckily—or was it?—she didn't need to figure out a way to warn her mom, because another animal ghost pushed its way through the bushes, growling loudly. And another. And another. And, oh boy, another.
"That's… a lot of them," Maddie said, slowly. She reached down in her belt with one hand. "Jazz, are you ready to move?"
"Uh huh." She shuffled a step or two back, away from the ghosts. They growled louder in response.
There was no way they could outrun a wolf, ghostly or not.
"Let's go!" her mom shouted, sprinting away. Jazz waited a beat before following, tugging on her core and hoping this stupid plan would work. She hadn't practiced using her powers in human form much, and by god did she regret it now. Definitely something to work on when she was back in Amity.
Her core churned loud in her chest. Behind her, the clearing grew brighter, like the fire had been stirred up, casting their immediate vicinity in golden light.
The ghost wolves behind them yelped as they ran into her shield, feeble as it was.
Jazz kept running.
Eventually they came to a stop, the clearing around them dark. Jazz looked around warily, but her core remained still. Even with her enhanced vision, it was hard to make out details.
"I think we got away from them," she said, breathing heavily. "We need to figure out a way to call Dad. Or to leave, at least."
"As much as I hate to say this," Maddie admitted, "I think we should go back to Vlad's."
Jazz jerked, her eyes flying to her mom. "But— He said all those terrible things about Dad!"
"We both know he's a creep. But he's a creep with a phone and transportation." Maddie sighed, then unlocked her Specter Deflector.
Before Jazz could stop her, the belt clicked closed around her own waist.
"Here. This will keep you safe if those ghosts come back."
"Right. Um. Thanks, Mom." She watched as the key was tucked back into Maddie's utility belt. "Uh. Do you know which way Vlad's mansion is?"
Danny's ghost sense went off, and he immediately perked up. Several animal ghosts stormed over the streets towards FentonWorks.
"Looks like it's showtime," he grumbled, pushing himself to his feet. He shifted into Phantom mid-step, jumping off of the roof when he reached it.
The ghosts had made it before he could, so Danny turned himself invisible when he phased inside. And boy, was he glad he did, because Jack stood armed and ready. The entryway around him was splattered with ectoplasm, the remains of earlier ghosts.
Danny darted around him, figuring that Jack could handle the downstairs, and he would take upstairs. He turned the corner and dropped his invisibility, figuring he'd better preserve his energy.
Another ghost phased through one of the upper walls, rabbit-like. Y'know, if rabbits were bright green, the size of a dog, and armed with tusk-like teeth.
He charged an ecto-blast, hitting the animal square in the side. It thudded against the wall, immediately dissolving into ectoplasm. Ah, yes, that was right. Vlad's little animal critters were incredibly unstable.
Man, this was bringing back some unfortunate memories.
Two boars phased through the ceiling, and Danny gladly blasted them, too. Their ectoplasm splattered onto the ceiling, and he grimaced. Whoops. Sorry to whoever would have to clean that up.
"What are you doing?"
He froze, then turned around, slowly. Plastered a sheepish grin onto his face. "Uh. Saving your dad?"
"Yeah?" Danny Fenton asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "By splattering ectoplasm everywhere?"
He shrugged. "Kinda. Vlad sent a bunch of unstable animal ghosts here to kill Jack. I dunno how Dad survived them in my own universe, but I figured I would lend a hand here."
"Vlad… Vlad Masters?" his alternate universe version asked, and oh yeah, he hadn't mentioned that part before, had he? "Ugh, never mind. Where's Dad?"
"Downstairs." His core coiled, and he breathed out blue mist on his next exhale. "Oh, here they come again."
Other Danny nodded, ducking past him and rushing towards the stairs. "You're an idiot if you think Dad made it through a fight like this alone."
"What? There was no one— oh. Duh." Danny shook his head, turning to follow his human counterpart. "Jazz must've helped him."
"If she could, so can I." He didn't even blink when Danny turned himself invisible again, rushing down the stairs and entryway.
They were just in time to watch two bird-like ghosts divebomb Jack, knocking the weapon out of his hands. Danny jerked upwards to avoid it, but human Danny jumped and caught it.
He glanced downwards at it, then back at the ghosts, a determined expression on his face. He put a finger on the button, then rushed towards the ghosts. Danny made a face but followed right behind, ready to blast away the ghosts if necessary.
His human counterpart pressed the button, revealing the invention to be the Jack-o'-Nine-Tails. He managed to tangle the ghosts in the cables, slamming them both against the floor. They destabilized in one hit, their ectoplasm splattering on the floor and walls.
"Wow!" Jack exclaimed, pushing himself to his feet. "Good job, Danno!"
Danny ignored the curdling in his stomach. It wasn't his dad, and he wasn't praising him.
"Thanks Dad," Danny's voice answered. "Here, take this back. You got an ectogun for me, or something?"
He didn't want to stay close, but… he was the only half-ghost here. If anyone had to take any hits, or shield the others, it would be him.
Besides, he had kind of accidentally dragged this universe's version of him into this. Jazz would end him if he got her brother killed.
Still, he could break from them while those two searched for weapons.
There were more ghosts upstairs, and Danny occupied himself for a while blasting those apart. A bear, oversized and six-armed, lunged for him, and Danny raised his arm to blast it away.
A green bolt of ectoplasm flew past him, hitting the animal before he could.
He froze, looking over his shoulder to find… ah, human Danny, of course. He'd swapped his clothes for a jumpsuit, close-fitting but bright orange. Not his own, then. In his arms, he held a large ectogun.
"I had it," Danny grumbled at him, rolling his eyes.
"Sure you did," his human counterpart said, lightly. "Let me get a few shots in too, will ya? Someone's gotta have Jazz' back when you leave."
And, ugh. He had a point there.
"Alright, you take point, then." Danny flew back, hovering over the ghost hunter. "I'll shield you if necessary."
"Sweet," other Danny whistled, a grin on his face. His ectogun whined, then shot another brilliant green bolt, blasting apart the ghost that had just phased through the wall. "You got some way to track these guys?"
"Kinda. I can sense ghosts, and direction if I focus, but nothing really solid."
"Good enough." Human Danny heaved his gun onto his shoulder. "Let's go back downstairs. Try to stay out of sight, will you?"
"Was already planning to." He followed the other down the stairs, turning himself invisible. "I'm not jumping to get shot by your dad."
To his credit, human Danny did try to avoid Jack; they mostly fought in separate rooms. And Danny didn't have to interfere all that much, either. He blasted the occasional ghost, when it tried to attack the others from the back, but not much else.
Well, not until another enormous bear showed up. Danny had just blasted away a ghost from over the other's shoulder, and thus hadn't been watching their back.
The bear's roar shook the walls, and they both whirled around towards it.
"Oh shit," human Danny whispered, hauling his gun upwards. They both knew it was too close for the shot to fend it off, though.
Danny raised his hands, dropped his invisibility, and poured all his energy into his hands. The shield that formed might've been his fastest ever, and it was just barely fast enough.
The ghost thudded against it, claws scraping over the shield's surface.
"Holy shit," he heard whispered behind him, as he strained to hold the shield.
"Get ready to fire," he snarled back, not turning to look. "I'll push it away, but I can't fire that soon."
"Ready," he heard, and then he shoved. His core spluttered, but the bear was knocked back into the wall. An enormous blast of ectoplasm followed it, hitting the bear right in the chest. It burst apart, coating the entire living room wall with ectoplasm.
Danny panted with the effort. His core churned, but it quickly recovered, ready for another bout of fighting.
"Are you okay?"
"Fine," he assured the other Danny, flapping a dismissive hand. "I'm just… not used to making shields that quickly. And, to be honest, it's been a while since my last endurance fight."
The other watched him for a moment longer, a worried crease to his brow, before he nodded. "Alright, well. Let's get back to it, then."
They fought off several more ghosts, darting around Jack where necessary, before the quiet fell in FentonWorks. Danny watched as his human counterpart leaned against the kitchen table, panting, the gun loosely held in his hand. He looked up when his dad entered the kitchen, the man's eyes settling on him.
Oh, uh, whoops. He must've dropped his invisibility somewhere along the line.
"Phantom," the man boomed, and Danny flinched back, inadvertently hiding behind human Danny.
But Jack didn't raise the Jack-o'-Nine-Tails he held in his hand. Just looked right at him.
"Uh, hey?" he finally said, realizing that his dad wasn't going to say anything else.
Jack's eyes slowly swept over him, then over the human he was hiding behind, and then back to Danny.
"Alone today?" Jack asked, and it took Danny a moment to realize what he was trying to ask.
"Uh, yeah." He shrugged loosely, vaguely shocked at how civil this conversation was. "Specter is my sister, but we're not, like, glued together."
Jack nodded, seemingly pleased, and stepped forward. And then… put his weapon down on the kitchen table, too. Right in front of Danny.
"Um," he said, before he could stop himself. "Are you sure you should be putting that down?"
"Planning on attacking me, Phantom?" Jack raised a questioning eyebrow.
"No, but there are probably more ghosts around." He floated away from human Danny, cocking his head at Jack. "Why aren't you… y'know?"
"You two are not nearly as subtle as you seem to think." Jack's eyes wandered back to his actual son. "I don't trust you, Phantom, but I've seen you in here. Seen you shield my son, and watch his back. I know my Danny, and he's not that good a ghost hunter."
Said son huffed and rolled his eyes. "It's not like I have any experience with it."
"Oh," Danny said, shuffling mid-air. "Well, um. Thanks, I guess?"
Quiet fell for a moment, before human Danny elbowed him in the side. "Not to disturb the peace or anything, but are we actually clear?"
"Uh, hold on." Danny stirred his core up again, trying to cast out his ghost sense. He hadn't had much practice with it, using his ghost sense as a radar of sorts, but it was a useful skill to have. He tasted the air, the pulse of cores. "No, not yet. There are a few still around."
"Well, back to the grind we go." The teen pushed himself away from the table, raising his gun back up. "Lead the way, Phantom."
"Hold on," Jack interrupted them. He grabbed his weapon as well, eyes settling on Danny. "You can track them?"
"Built-in ghost sense," Danny explained with a shrug. "Usually it just warns me when other ghosts are close, but I can track ones that are close if I really try."
Jack nodded, then gestured, a grin wide on his face. "Let's go get them, boys."
Maddie knocked on the door, and Jazz plastered on her most pleasant smile. Vlad opened the door with a startled expression, but quickly smoothed it over with a—frankly slimy—grin.
"Maddie, Jasmine! You have returned to me," he greeted them, unnecessarily cheery.
He stepped aside to let them in, but Maddie pressed forward a little further than she normally would have. "Jazz, honey, why don't you go somewhere else while the adults talk?"
"Sure thing," she replied, creeping past the two of them, practically unnoticed. Vlad's eyes had settled on Maddie, and only Maddie. "If you need me, I'll be over there." She gestured vaguely, but neither noticed.
She watched as her mom smiled coyly at Vlad, and grimaced as she ducked into a different hallway. She wanted to use the opportunity to search for a phone—her ghost powers would make it quicker than her mom could—but she didn't know if the Specter Deflector would activate if she did.
Well, actually. Might as well go look on foot, right? She would just stick somewhat nearby, so she could check in if Maddie needed her to take over distraction duty.
Her search of Vlad's mansion was quick, but bore little fruit. Vlad didn't have a single phone in the whole building! There were several vehicles, though, which they might be able to borrow if Vlad wasn't around.
She returned to the hallway she'd been hiding in earlier just in time to see her mom ducking around the corner.
"No phones anywhere, but there's a bunch of different vehicles that we could maybe borrow," Jazz whispered as she slid up to Maddie. "ATVs, cars, a helicopter… but no phone."
Her mom made a face. "I want to take a look around, just to be sure. Why don't we meet up at the helicopter in fifteen minutes, and we'll use that if I can't find anything better."
"Alright. I'll keep Vlad distracted for you."
Maddie nodded, then headed off through the doorway. Jazz hung back for a moment, sorting through possible plans of approach.
There was no way that Vlad would just let them leave, so she had to take him out. There was no way she could take him in a fight, though. Not a fair fight, at least. But according to Phantom, he had beaten Vlad by using Vlad's own invention, a taser which shorted out their powers. She just had to take it from him, and, well. Intangibility made for easy pick-pocketing, as much as she hated to admit it.
She turned around the corner, smoothing out her hair and returning her nice-girl smile to her face. "Hey, um, Uncle Vlad?"
Vlad was sitting on a couch in front of the fireplace, but he looked up from the book in his hands when she spoke up. "Oh, please, Jasmine, don't try to butter me up. Mentor or not, you're hardly a threat to me."
"How can you say that?" She blinked large wet eyes at him, her tone as soft and innocent as she could make it. "You think my mom made the decision to come back on her own? We're a family. We both talked about it, and I want to stay here with you too."
Vlad visibly brightened up, his eyes turning suspiciously wet. "Really? You don't mean…"
"Yes, I do." She pushed down her roiling gut, the feeling she had to puke just for talking sweet to this man. She apologized internally to her dad for what she would have to say next. "Come on, give me a big hug, new Dad!"
The man grinned widely, immediately dropping the book and approaching for the hug. She wrapped her arms around him first, turning one hand intangible to dig through his pockets. Around her waist, the Specter Deflector buzzed louder and louder, the feeling of static dancing over her skin.
Vlad screamed, immediately letting her go. Electricity still darted over his skin, his suit scorched in places.
Jazz tucked the hand with the taser behind her back.
"You little rat!" Vlad snarled at her, his eyes flashing red. "You tricked me! But you've underestimated me! I don't need to touch you to fight—"
He frowned, suddenly, hand patting at his empty pocket.
"Wow, were you really going to fight me as Plasmius?" she asked innocently, folding her hands behind her back. "Even though my mom might come back any moment?"
Vlad growled, stepping closer to her again. He raised a hand, glowing pink ectoplasm swirling around it. "You underestimate my power, little girl!"
She cocked her head, smirking at him. "Do I?"
Suddenly she darted forward, pressing the taser against Vlad's side. She held down the button, watched as the ectoplasm around his fist fizzled out again.
"How about now?" she asked, pulling the taser out of his reach. "That shorted out your powers for three hours, didn't it?"
Vlad blinked at her, frizzled and clearly surprised. "How do you know about— No, never mind. Because, Jasmine, you've forgotten about one more detail!"
He whistled, the sound loud and echoing. Jazz' core stirred with her ghost sense as several animal ghosts phased through the floor, grouping around Vlad.
"Get her!" the man commanded, pointing at her.
"Me?" She pointed a finger at herself. "But why would they be mad at me? I'm not the one who made their pelts into wall art."
She gestured at the hunting trophies on the wall, the bearskin on the floor.
The animal ghosts turned back to Vlad, growling and snarling at him.
"Go on, get him," she encouraged them, and the mob of ghosts lunged at Vlad. The man swore, immediately racing for the door.
Maybe not the most polite way of handling this conflict, but, well. Sometimes you needed to use a little more force.
She glanced at the clock, made a face. Time to head up to the helicopter and get out.
Jazz met her mom on the helipad. "Any luck?"
"No. Looks like we'll be borrowing Vlad's helicopter. Where is he?"
"I asked him already. He's alright with it." She grinned innocently as they climbed into the chopper seats. "And, Mom? It was a little unconventional, and definitely not what we planned, but… I'm glad that we got to spend some time together."
Maddie smiled back, soft and warm and genuine. "Oh, Jazz, that's so sweet."
The helicopter roared to life around them. Amity Park was waiting.
The real reason why I wrote the confrontation last chapter from human Danny's perspective: because Phantom absolutely refuses to stop referring to himself as Danny, making every scene with both Danny's confusing as all heck. Also my boy Phantom is doing a spectacular job avoiding Vlad and it was absolutely not intentional, I swear.
If you enjoy my writing, keep your eyes on my account for this month! The Phic Phight is running during the entire month of April, and I'm trying to blast my record from last year (~35k) out of the water, so there will probably be quite some one-shots going up! If you're here just for Absurdism, though, no worries! I've written everything up to (and including) chapter 14, so the weekly updates are ready for the rest of the month, too. (and I planned out the last two chapters, too, just for good measure)
Next week, chapter 11: The Million Dollar Ghost