"…T-minus two hours 'til impact" Costas warned as the big threatening clock that hung over their heads, counted down. "How's it going, soldier?"
"I'm working as fast as I can! Geez!" Krel snapped in retort as he finished soldering the section he was working on, before he moved to connect the pieces together. Despite his retort, he still hurried his movements, appeasing the sergeant, if only a little. "You're worse than Ms Janeth!"
The sparse few hours that they had left were spent constructing the device that would catapult Dan skywards. Rave music pounded throughout the warehouse as Krel, fuelled by Nougat Nummies, moved with purpose as he tossed the technology that he deemed unimportant or useless and built up the machine that would catapult the halfa and stop the asteroid. Aja & Vex both ferried the large pieces of chosen tech over to the engineer, whilst Eli & Toby were more than happy to sit back in the background offering the occasional encouragement, snack or drink to the hard workers.
Of course, Toby being the teenager he was, refused to budge from his seat and more often than not just batted the items in question over to the individual using his war hammer. More than one soldier had fallen prey to his heavy hit and poor aim. Finally, a selection of hazmats were put to work like little soldier drones as they fixed up certain parts and delivered them to the Akiridion king-in-waiting. Honestly, the Akiridion-built contraption wouldn't go amiss amongst the Fenton Works inventions.
Meanwhile, whilst the Akiridions worked on the cannon that would eventually launch the halfa up into space, Kubritz's team were focused on constructing a mask that would not only allow them to communicate with the halfa, but also track his movements alongside the usual function of mask—breathing. Now, Dan may not breathe as often as the typical human, but he was sure that travelling at however many g's would snatch the breath from his lungs, so it's not like he was going to complain. Of course, the scientists were following Krel's step-by-step instructions, so it's not like they were totally left to flounder through the dark.
As for the suit, Dan had been gifted with something of Le'Zard design (a desert-like planet in the Novis system), that Kubritz had stolen from some tourists that had crashed on Earth sometime in the 80s. It was a little strange, yes, to note that the thing he wore was much more alive than he was. But after he had fled Amity Park and grown some, the beloved inverse hazmat suit that he had worn throughout his career as Amity's beloved (to love or hate) guardian, fit a little snug and so he was forced to change it up. If only so he didn't have to constantly suffer from the power of self-induced wedgies; honestly, they were almost as bad as the ones Dash handed out.
The Le'Zard suit was connected to Dan's ghoulish system via two neurocuffs that sat snugly around each wrist and helped to synchronise his vitals with the artificially living suit. Because of the fact that the suit was technically alive, two nutritional bags were neatly glued upon his shoulders; one for sustenance and one for discretion. Dan tried not to dwell on the fact that the thing he was wearing was quite literally shitting on him.
There was only one drawback (depending on who you asked); Le'Zard suits only bonded with one partner in their lifetimes could not be reprogrammed otherwise. Kubritz appeared rather sullen about this fact as she glared at any who dared look her way. It didn't take an expert to see that the colonel was upset that Earth's one and only Le'Zard suit was being given away to their temporary 'ally' under the guise of saving the planet. If Dan were to hazard a guess, he would've said that Kubritz probably would've preferred to have the suit hidden away under lock & key in the vaults—her personal vaults—where other such things were hidden.
Slipping into the suit had been odd in of itself, what with the seams gluing themselves together around him and the synchronisation of said suit to his halfa biometrics (he had been wary at first, about the idea that Area 49B would have more than just the samples they stole from him during their raid on the high school). What had once been a baggy sack of pulsating material, had come alive and—quite literally—hugged his every curve and edge like a second skin. Toby—grinning from ear-to-ear and practically buzzing in place had slapped a handmade 'Danny Phantom' logo on the front of his chest to commemorate his "…heroic comeback as the awesome halfa hero, Danny Phantom! Coming to you live from Area 49B!…"
With a camera lens and multiple eyes trained on the halfa, the two transformation rings ran up and down his body as Dan transformed. In the background, he could hear the grin in his voice as Toby giddily declared "Going Ghost!" behind the colours of the suit inverted, leaving him in a suit of black and white, lined by seams of green. His boots & gloves were white, just as the hazmat suit had been, with Toby's handmade logo and mask (that would allow him to breathe when travelling at such a high velocity) standing out in an almost bioluminescent green and the white epaulettes upon his shoulders that made him appear broader than he actually was. If you didn't know any better, you'd have never known that his super suit had changed at all.
Currently, the halfa sat wedged in between the engineering Akiridion and the two humans hyped up on soda & Nougat Nummies. His foot jiggled partially in nervousness & partially in tune to the beating bass of the foreign song that blasted throughout the warehouse as he tied his hair back into a ponytail. He grounded his teeth together in a poor attempt to not freak out at buzz of a saw or spark of a welder. It was rather odd being back in Area 49B; especially considering their last escapade into the scientific division and Dan's own experiences regarding laboratories in general.
Last time, he had taken note of his parents' signature on a few of the inventions littered about the place and after the raid on the high school, he knew that Kubritz had at least some of the Fenton Works line, alongside whatever Vlad had donated to 'the cause' In their brief journey between the van and the warehouse, he had noted more of the billionaire's inventions around the place and he could've sworn he had seen the pieces of a Ghost Portal plus containers of ectoplasm being transported to somewhere in the back of the property. He was pleased to note however, that at least those Guys in White agents that had been there previously were long gone—either dead by his hand or returned to the government to regroup and/or report.
"Ugh! Kleb!" Krel groaned, buried half-way into the machine as he fiddled with the power source.
"What is it, little brother?" Aja hummed around the Nougat Nummy she had pilfered off of Toby & Eli.
"The power source keeps fluctuating and glitching for no reason!"
"Er…" Dan winced, sheepishly rubbing his nape. "That might be my fault"
"What do you mean?"
"Uh, well, the dead are notorious for, uh, fudging up technology in general just by being there"
"What?! Why didn't you mention this earlier?!"
"It's common knowledge" Dan shrugged. "At least at home, it is"
"Wait!" Eli perked up, eyes gleaming, "S'at why ghosts only haunt old houses and stuff?"
"More or less"
"So cool!" Eli and Toby chorused.
"But you've been inside Mother" Aja furrowed her brows in confusion (and ignored the snickering from their peers behind her at the unintended innuendo). "And nothing like that has happened, has it?"
"That's because Mother has a continuous power source that can keep up with my, er, glitches. So unless you've got something like that hanging around…?"
"Well" Aja spared a conspiratorial glance over at Vex. "What other kind of power source would you need, little brother? Couldn't you just build something to counteract the glitching?"
"Look" Krel snapped irritably, annoyed to be thrown such a large spanner in the works. "The cannon needs to be powered by a steady stream of electrothermal energy. So unless you have a 400-megaton neutron bomb lying around—!"
"Hey! Don't jump down my throat! At least I told you!" Dan snarked in retort.
"—Wait" Aja interjected before the two could go at each other's throats, "A bomb isn't the only source of electrothermal energy. You have another in your custody, but it'll take some convincing"
"You can't be serious, sister!" Krel gaped, incredulously.
"Do you have any better ideas, little brother?"
"I'm not gonna like this, am I?" Dan asked no one in particular.
"…Tronos?" Aja hedged as she crept into the laboratory where the electrothermal bounty hunter was being housed with Krel in her ear, plus Vex and two armed hazmats at her back.
"The queen-in-waiting us requesting an audience with you!" Vex snapped before falling silent with a grunt at Aja's call.
"I'm not here to harm you" Aja tried as she shuffled closer. "I just want to talk. Tronos?"
"RAH!" Tronos roared as he surged up towards the glass, scaring Aja back a step or two.
"Ah!" She stumbled back.
"HA!" Vex jumped in front of the fallen queen-in-waiting, serator drawn.
"Hehe~" Tronos chuckled darkly, "For an powerful queen-in-waiting, you look awfully scared"
"I'm not afraid—!"
"—Then why cower behind your protector?"
"Varvatos, put down your serator!" Aja pushed her way back to the front of the glass. "I know you hate my family, but right now we need to put our differences aside. An asteroid is headed for Earth! And we've built a device to destroy it, but we need you to power it"
"Hehe~"
"Tronos, please! In less than two horvaths, that asteroid is going to kill all of us and you along with it"
"If this asteroid is going to take down the entire royal family, then I'll be happy to go along with it" Tronos paced back into the dark corners of his cell.
"How is it going, Aja?" Krel's voice crackled in her ear when she received only more dark chuckles from the dark cell.
"I'm working on it" Aja grit out from between clenched teeth. Her own impatience was mirrored in his voice and she bit her lower lip in an attempt to avoid breaking her poker face. It wasn't working.
"Well, can you work faster? If you don't hurry up we're all gonna be squished soolians!"
"Ugh! Look" Aja groaned as she turned back to the task at hand, barely restraining herself from rolling her eyes at her brother. "If you help us, we can—we can help you get out of this prison!"
"After the empty promises your family has made before, why would I trust you now?" Demanded Tronos. It was a fair question.
"You have no reason to" She pressed her hands against the glass, getting as close to the electrothermal creature as possible. "Not when there's a wall standing between us"
"Your Highness!" Vex exclaimed as Aja nodded to the hazmat, ordering him to lift the glass wall. "What're you doing?! He'll eat you live!"
"There are some risks worth taking. I want to talk to him face-to-face" Aja replied as she stepped into the cell with her core pounding—surprising Tronos at the action as she faked confidence she did not fully feel— and placed a projection of Voltar on the ground between them. "I found footage of Voltar. I know what my parents did to your planet"
"How dare you!" Tronos snarled, surging forward with a crackle of lightning flying towards her head.
"Stop, please!" Aja tried again as she flung up a ionic shield just in time. "I watched it, and it was horrible, every second of it. And I know my parents could've prevented it—"
"RAH!" This time Tronos held no qualms about holding back as he attacked.
"—Listen to me!" Aja pleaded as she dodged and wove. "I don't know why they didn't stop it, but as a surviving member of the royal lineage, please accept my apology!"
"I didn't come here for your apology!"
"I know. You could use your power to kill me right now and finally avenge Voltar—oof!" Aja coughed as she was tossed aside before quickly leaping back to her feet. A surge of pride swarmed through Vex as he watched his queen-in-waiting keep up with the bounty hunter that had previously bested her. "Or—nn!—You can use your power to save a planet and the lives of everyone on it who need your help"
"Just like Voltar needed my family's" Although she held him at knifepoint, her serator mere inches from carving out his core, she easily sheathed her blade tossed her serator off to the side with a tired sigh. Her legs seemed to collapse out from beneath her as she hit the floor, and pleaded for the bounty hunter to help them save the Earth. "Please"
"Grr!" Tronos growled, claws crackling with lightning as Aja bowed her head to him.
"My royal!" Vex cried, his need to protect warring with his need to stay put & listen to orders.
"We can both be better than my parents" Aja ended. Tronos reared back his crackling fist, readying a blow that had the Akiridion clenching her eyes shut in fear, her poker face long gone. But she needn't have worried as the lightning dissipated to reveal an outstretched hand.
"…Tell me how"
