Chapter LXXXI
The first thing Danny noticed as he slid onto his lab stool was the sudden flare of pain that originated from the right side of the back of his head. He thought his voices had become hostile, especially that brutish, aggressive one. But the realization set in that the voices, not even that one, would harm him while they were inside his body. And his attention was then immediately drawn to a particularly angry Sam Manson.
"What the hell?" Danny grumbled through clenched teeth.
"Don't what the hell me, Danny," Sam replied in an even angrier tone. "You know exactly what the hell."
"Don't even start to lecture me about Paulina," Danny whispered angrily as Mr. Falluca began writing the lab instructions on the board. "You're not the one who has to worry about homicidal children coming back from the future to kill you!"
"You're right," Sam countered. "Because I might not even be alive to have homicidal children in that future!"
"Oh wah," Danny mocked as he began to arrange his chemicals in the order his teacher had written on the board. "Poor Sam, who really has no idea about her future. Unlike some of us," Danny vigorously poured his chemicals together in a test tube and placed it over a Bunsen burner, "who actually know that our future is going to suck."
"You're the one in charge," Sam replied as she violently contributed to the experiment, dashing larger amounts of the allotted substances than was necessary. "I don't see why you're even upset! You rule the Earth, the Ghost Zone and every piece of real estate in between."
"Is that supposed to make me happy?" Danny growled, his voice getting slightly louder. "Does the fact that I'm supreme overlord of everything mean that I have to be happy about it?"
"I guess not," Sam replied, her voice steadily increasing as well. "But then, nothing really makes you happy these days."
"And here it comes," Danny sighed loudly in exasperation as he poured water into a beaker.
"Oh, excuse me, am I wrong?" Sam asked, pretending to be apologetic. "I must be in topsy-turvey world then! I guess hours of woe-is-me rants and my-parents-would-hate-me speeches mean you're as happy as a lemming at the Grand Canyon."
Danny rolled his eyes. He saw that his test tube wasn't bubbling and lit a small ectoplasmic fire underneath it with his index finger. "I know you're scared about Walker. So am I, and so is Tucker and Jazz and I bet just about everyone else who knows about him. But don't try to tell me how to live my life. Don't get all up in my business about who I can and can't talk to. You're not my mother."
"Yeah? Well I doubt you'd listen to her. When's the last time you sat down and talked with your family?"
"About?"
"Anything! School, their work, music, ghosts, anything!"
"Ok, first off, yesterday. We had a very long conversation about temporal paradoxes and the possibility of the existence of ghosts with powers over the fabric of time. It was neat. Second, where do you get off telling me how to interact with my family? Have you looked at your family lately?"
Sam glared daggers at her best friend (for the moment) and poured the contents of her test tube into her beaker. Danny followed suit, unaware of the almost invisible green mist that was rising from his concoction.
"Where do you get off talking about my family like that?" Sam spat.
"The same place you get off talking about mine," Danny shot back. "Seriously, ever since this Walker stuff happened, you've been riding me non-stop about it. Its like the fact that I even told you gave you OCD."
Sam looked like she was about to explode. Danny couldn't help but feel the same. And yet, for some odd reason, Sam looked . . . really attractive this way. The boy felt his temper fizzle out. He couldn't really blame the girl for her anger. If Walker was telling the truth, and Danny had no reason to believe the contrary, then it was more likely than not that Sam would be dead in the future. The same applied to Tucker.
Danny sighed as the two poured their compounds into a larger beaker. "I'm sorry, Sam," Danny's voice had dropped back down to a whisper.
Sam's anger evaporated. "N-no, I'm sorry. You're right; it's really not my place to butt in."
"But it is," Danny corrected as the last of their beakers' contents were emptied into the larger container. "My actions now affect the entire world later. You have every right to be worried and angry and all that stuff."
Sam smiled at her friend's foresight. He really was clueless, but at least he was smart. "Apology accepted," she took Danny's hand in hers behind the lab table and squeezed it. "And we'll figure this out, Danny, all of us. We'll make sure that Walker never happens."
Danny grinned and squeezed Sam's hand back. And that was when the ectoplasmically charged sugar mixed with the trace amounts of mercury in the beaker. The explosion was small, but the shockwave that it created was strong enough to knock over the two teenagers and ruffle papers all over the classroom.
"What in the name of – Daniel! Samantha! Are you two alright?"
Mr. Falluca hurried over to the blast site and saw the two lying on their backs with identical expressions of shock etched into their features. Their goggles had protected their eyes from the grey-green powder that now covered their faces. Danny and Sam looked at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter.
The short, stout scientist sighed and shook his head. "Go get cleaned up, you two."
"What about our project?" Danny asked. Even though the teacher was looking over the remains of the lab experiment gone wrong, he could hear the smile in the young man's voice.
"I suppose I can give you a make up assignment," Robert mused as he rubbed his chin. "I want an essay from both of you explaining why it is important to focus on potentially dangerous chemicals during a classroom experiment instead of bickering like an old married couple about who-knows-what. One page, double spaced, typed, you know the drill."
Danny and Sam blushed as snickers and giggles floated around the room following the married couple remark. They headed out for their respective restrooms, leaving Mr. Falluca to wonder why the seemingly harmless mixture of sugar and salt would react in such a violent way.
Upon further inspection, the miniscule grains of sugar from Daniel's half of the project were green and, with the aid of a magnifying glass, the science teacher saw that each grain was giving off a strange, barely noticeable glow. That explained at least half the problem.
It would be a while before he discovered the traces of mercury. But not even the brilliant mind of Mr. Falluca would be able to discern where it had come from.
Phantom dodged a rocket aimed for his torso and fired a beam of ectoplasm at the Huntress' weapon. On impact, the metal surface of the weapon heated exponentially.
"Ow!" the Huntress flung the weapon from her hands, catching the mistake too late as Phantom swooped in, grabbed it and snapped it in half.
"You'll have to do better than that!" Phantom taunted as he flew up alongside her Banshee Board. "Remember, I'm a seasoned veteran!"
Valerie growled and grabbed another weapon from one of the many compartments in her hover craft. This one was unusually shaped, but no less intimidating. She fired off three shots that slammed into the ghost boy's chest.
"Seriously now," Phantom said, looking down at the three Shuriken that jutted from his chest. "Don't you ever learn?"
"Don't you?" Valerie tapped a button on her wrist and red electricity surged from the three objects.
Phantom dropped like a fly and rolled along the street. Civilians scattered in his wake. Valerie brought her board down to ground level and grinned. Phantom was writhing in pain on the pavement as the voltage continued.
"I've been looking forward to this for a long time," she said coldly. "Prepare to die. Again."
"S-sounds like a J-James Bond m-m-movie," Phantom stammered as he rose to his feet. He could feel the electric pulses weaken as his own electroplasm worked to shield him from Valerie's new weapon before absorbing it. "But I stopped watching them after they ditched Sean Connery."
Phantom closed his eyes and concentrated. The three Shuriken were slowly pulled into his body and disappeared. "But I don't think even he could do this!" Phantom puffed his chest out and tightened his abdominal muscles. The spinning discs shot out of his stomach in rapid succession, leaving a single line as an exit wound, which sealed up quickly. The discs flew at Valerie too quickly for her to dodge. Luckily for her, Phantom wasn't very experienced at firing circular projectiles from his stomach.
The first disc tore into her Banshee Board, severing the magnetic seal system that kept Valerie rooted to the device. The second one was a clean miss, but the third one, covered in Phantom's glowing green blood like the first two, ripped across Valerie's upper arm. Her own crimson blood sprayed into the air behind her.
"AHHH!" she dropped to her knees in pain, clutching the wound with her good arm. "Damn it! DAMN IT!"
Phantom flew over to her and crossed his arms. "Ever since this started, I said I didn't want to fight. I said I didn't kill your mother. Neither of those two seems to get you to leave me alone, and this," he gestured to the girl's arm, which was now covered in blood, "will probably not help."
"You got that right, ghost," Valerie muttered through clenched teeth. "Next time we meet, you are dead!"
Phantom rolled his eyes. "Please. I consider myself to be rusty, and look what happened. Think about how you'd be doing if I was at the top of my game."
Valerie remained silent, trembling as she held on to her arm. Her board refused to move as her boots were no longer sealed to its clamps.
"Well this isn't helping you. Let me-"
"Stay back!" Valerie spat. She held a grenade in her hand with her thumb hovering dangerously close to the activation button. Once it was pressed, anyone within a five meter radius had two seconds to high-tail it to safety. "I'm warning you!"
"Well I'm warning you," Phantom replied edgily. "You're losing a lot of blood and I can bet that you don't want to go to a hospital. They'll unmask you and then you can say bye-bye to revenge. Let me help you."
"You just . . . tried to . . . kill me," Valerie gasped between deep breaths. "I . . ."
Phantom caught the Huntress and slung her over his shoulder as she passed out. Her Banshee Board clattered to the street below among the group of civilians that had gathered below.
"Uh, you guys! Down there! Watch that thing, will you? Don't let anyone take it, understand?"
"You got it, Phantom!"
"You rock!
"You suck!
"Give us the Huntress!"
"Go! Take her to a hospital!"
"Dude, I swear to God, I'll shove your head into that mayonnaise jar if you don't – hey, look! It's Phantom!"
The ghost boy flew off ignoring the cries of his adoring fans and the jeers and threats of the Phantom haters and landed atop a large building. He set Valerie down and took off his glove. The pale skin of his body rarely saw the light of day, save for the Ember incident, and it was fascinating to see. But the fascination lasted for a split second as he wiped the blood away from the wound and placed his hand over it. The dim blue glow started to appear, sparkling brilliantly against the darkening sky, but it flickered out as quickly as it appeared.
Come on, come on, work! Work!
This is a power you cannot use on your own.
We must help you! Only with our combined power can you hope to save her life!
Then what are you waiting for?
The power of his others slowly began to increase his own strength and the dim blue glow popped back into existence. It steadily grew brighter as the healing energies flowed into Valerie's body. The wound sealed over and the traces of Phantom's blood in the girl's body were transformed into human blood cells before multiplying at an accelerated rate. All the blood lost was quickly replaced and the wound was sealed without even a scar left behind.
She will live.
Yes. A victory for you, Danny.
You guys ok? You sound tired.
It is not easy to expend that much energy.
We are tired.
I'm the one who healed her, I should be tired.
It is too complicated to explain to you right now.
Especially in our weakened state.
Fear not, Daniel, for we will be back in full swing tomorrow.
Yes. Your mind will, once again, will be our battlefield. But not now.
Now, we rest.
And with that, for the first time since the voices made their presences known, they were gone. Under any other circumstances, Phantom would be elated. But now, he felt alone in his own body.
"Ugh," Valerie sat up. "Wh-what happened?"
"I saved your life," the ghost boy said coolly. "You're welcome."
"I didn't say thank you," Valerie spat as she stood up. "And you left all this blood on me."
Phantom sighed. "There's just no pleasing some people." He placed his hand on the girl's shoulder and turned her intangible. The still-drying blood fall through her body.
"Where's my Banshee Board?"
"Look at you, back in action already," he shook his head. "I left it down there with a bunch of civilians. The ones that love me listened to me when I told them not to let anyone take it. The ones that love you will probably do the same thing. They'll probably kill each other trying to protect it from nobody. Come on, I'll take you to it."
"Yeah right, like I'm going to-"
"Listen, Val, I just saved your life. You can at least give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm not going to make off with you or something stupid like that."
Valerie gaped at Phantom from behind her mask. Phantom could see her slightly opened jaw and wondered what he had said wrong.
"What did you call me?"
Oh. That. "Val, Valerie, The Huntress, whatever! You're the same person no matter what I call you."
"Well don't call me that. The last thing I need is for the world to think that I'm on a pet name basis with my arch enemy."
Phantom grabbed Valerie and lifted her up bridal style. "We don't think we have to be arch enemies."
"I don't care what you think," she sneered, uncomfortably wrapping her arms around the ghost's neck as he flew her down to street level. "You're just a stupid ghost."
"A stupid ghost that knows a fall from this height will kill you. And this time, I won't use my super powers to fix you."
Valerie grunted, shifting her weight in Phantom's arms. They flew in silence for a while. Phantom hadn't realized how far up he had flown. "This is much nicer than the last time we were like this."
"Refresh my memory."
"Well," Phantom chuckled. "I distinctly remember a gun barrel being pushed into my temple and threats to splatter my brains across the city."
"Oh, that time," Valerie grinned. "I can't wait to tell my grandkids how I turned you into a green smear and a memory some day."
"Yes, little Phantom Junior will love to hear his mom talk about how she killed me. He'll adore you for that."
Valerie glared at Phantom. "Do not even joke about that. You're disgusting."
"And you're very attractive," Phantom spoke louder over the noise of the crowd below. "But I guess it just wasn't meant to be."
Valerie jumped from his arms and landed next to her Banshee Board. "You got that right."
She fired up the device and wobbled as the board rose into the sky. "You jerk! You broke the magnetic seals!"
"You keep live animals inside that thing? You're the jerk!"
Phantom heard a strange sound and looked down to see the crowd laughing at his joke. His supporters were particularly loud. His pale face tinged pink in embarrassment, but it quickly passed.
"Thank you! Thank you, you're all too kind!"
"Oh give it a rest," Valerie sighed as she fastened her boots down with manual locking devices and straps. "I'll be forced to put you down if you keep torturing them like that."
The crowd laughed again, Valerie's supporters were definitely more audible than Phantom's.
"Well I'm going home. Same time next week?" Phantom said with a yawn.
"It's a date," Valerie replied before flying off.
The crowd unanimously erupted into whoops and hollers of excitement at Valerie's remark. "Oh please, you've never seen an inter-dimensional relationship before?" Phantom said, turning to the crowd. "Guess not. You stay classy, Amity Park."
Phantom flew off, the cheers from the crowd rung in his ears all the way home, unaware that a malicious pair of red eyes was watching him all the way.
To Be Continued
A/N: Well how about that. Is Valerie finally starting to warm up to our favorite ghost boy? And who's malicious red eyes were watching him? Hear that? That's the sound of Mentok the Mindtaker. It's a mystery . . . Things are going to pick up soon, I promise. When the action starts, it's going to keep on going until it stops, which is usually the case for actiony stories.
Reviews! I didn't get many last chapter, but then, there really wasn't much to review on. Special thanks to GreyandNameless, Musicallity, Coppa-Cola, darkbunny92, darkness over day, and MissMeliss4251.
And I guess I need to explain these bolded bits I stick at the end of the chapters. They're just that. They mean absolutely nothing. I just think of something and put it in, like lyrics from a song (e.g. last chapter) or a quote from a movie (see: bah-weep-grah-nah-weep-ninni-bong). It's that simple. Some of you, like the adorably confused Musicallity, deserve an explanation. And there it is. So yeah.
DRINK PURE LIFE. COLLECT LABELS. GO PLAY!