AN: Ciao!~ :D Hello my lovely readers~ Hope you've all been well :) You know, I'm going to be honest. Every single time I say that I can't promise the next one will be on time, but I've yet to fail on being on time except with one chapter that was only late by half an hour. That doesn't mean I'll stop saying it, though. XD I really can't promise the next one will be on time, either! I try my hardest, but life can be a b sometimes, so I don't want to promise anything I might break :) It probably doesn't help that I've done most of these chapters on Wednesday nights and in one long sitting each XD Anyway, hope you enjoy!~
~Meanwhile~
Danny is in his chair/temporary-bed, bored out of his mind. He had woken up at a surprisingly early time for a day where he wouldn't have to go to school and completed the homework Lancer had given to Jazz (which Danny had snuck from her and made copies of) within the first couple hours of being awake. As soon as he had woken up, he'd morphed to ghost-form to put off eating for a while, deciding evening would be the only time of day he would let himself leave the Op Center as it was the only one that really made sense. There would be less chance of being seen as everybody would be heading indoors to eat and settle down with the night yet early enough that none of the maniac tourists would suspect him to be out as they, ridiculously, loved looking for him at night and pretty much everywhere but his house.
He sighs, remembering some of his most difficult escapes from fans to pass the time. There had been quite a few, one of the worst being a middle-aged woman who managed to catch him by the ankle with ghost-proof rope, reeled him in, and tried forcing him to sign a marriage contract. Luckily, his sister was able to find him in time before she succeeded. He's still thinking of the way his sister started trying to psychologically figure out the older fangirl when his ghost sense goes off, and he groans.
"You've got to be kidding m-" he starts to complain before a shout cuts him off.
"Oh, COME ON!" Danny freezes at the voice, knowing exactly who it is and realizing how close she is. He floats into the air as silently as possible then starts hiding all evidence of his camp in the oddest places. There isn't a place for the jumbo bean-bag chair, so he picks it up and turns it invisible with himself, listening outside for what was going on.
"-take your new box, give it back in an unfriendly way, and throw you back in myself. Which would you rather do?" Dani finishes. There's a slight whoosh which Danny recognizes, realizing that The Box Ghost (as other ghosts had an obsession with boxes) had just dove away from Dani, probably going to hide. Danny keeps still as Dani phases into the Op Center, drops Danny's pillow on the ground, and flops herself down, falling asleep within moments. Danny silently turns around and phases out of the Op Center.
"Why is she sleeping in there? And, aw, crud. Where am I supposed to go?! I can't risk going to the basement during the day when someone might hear me. If I stay outside in this form, I'm bound to be detected by some equipment soon. If I go anywhere in human form, I'll pass out from lack of food within an hour since I haven't eaten anything since last night. Hmm.." Danny continues his thoughts in his head, trying to think of any place which would be safe for him to hide for the day. With how exhausted Dani had looked, she would obviously be asleep for hours as long as nothing woke her up.
Thinking about his cousin, Danny gets an idea of somewhere to go. He starts flying quickly, gaining speed as he goes. There had been one place he'd been meaning to check on for the last several weeks, but hadn't gotten to. It would take him only about an hour if he went there at top speed.
The trip takes about two hours as Danny slows and watches the land run beneath him until he's coming up on the giant mansion in the middle of Wisconsin forest. He lands in front of the grandest of Vlad's former homes, looking around at the changes. Within the months since its abandonment after the police finished their searches of it, the yard has gone to hell where one can't tell weeds from grass. The mansion itself has seen better days as it already looks as though it had been empty for years rather than months with all the windows broken out from rocks and rude graffiti mocking and insulting its missing owner except a few parts where people had plastered Danny's emblem. Danny smirks at the sight of them, thinking about just how furious Vlad would be if he ever came back and saw them.
Danny had never once felt any real pity for Vlad since the elder halfa had vanished. Sure, some probably had expected him to feel it, but putting the entire world at risk then holding it hostage had crossed Danny's line for the last time. However, Danny hadn't felt any anger or hatred towards Vlad in the past several months, either. That had passed after about two weeks of being on edge and expecting him to return. Now, no feelings whatsoever remained in Danny when it came to Vlad. He supposes that's one of the big differences between the two of them. While Vlad had let his hatred and jealousy of Jack rule him for so long, Danny was able to let it go. If he didn't, he risked becoming a worse version of Dan.
Danny shakes his head and sighs to try clearing his head of the thoughts of it all and sets to work on the reason he came. He enters the mansion, not worried about any defense systems as his parents and the police had disabled and destroyed them before searching the place. Danny's surprised when he floats in and finds everything in tact. Not a thing had been stolen. He brushes it off along with the uneasy feeling at how eerie the place is and sets out toward the library and then dives down into the lab.
"Well, at least I know where my parents got their latest ideas from," he mutters to himself. Unlike the rest, the lab is torn apart with almost all of Vlad's weapons and inventions scattered and taken apart. Danny lands on an empty patch of floor and walks over to the Portal, looking at it. He notices the Ecto-Filtrator is almost full and immediately sets about searching for a new one. He can't care less about the mansion blowing up, but the Portal is another story. He's the only one with the password (he had been the only one to figure out the old one and changed it so that it didn't disturb him each time), so it was a great back-up Portal if their own was ever blocked to him. Not to mention, his parents and him had sealed up all the possible entrances, so now the only way in or out was phasing through.
He finds an unused Filtrator and quickly switches them out before pulling out his phone and putting it in his calendar to replace it in five and a half months, which would give two weeks in case he couldn't at that time. He puts his phone away and turns on the computer monitor and begins running a system check. He would've loved Tucker being here to do it instead, but he did know how to do it himself now that he was able to get a crash-course from his parents. As the check is running, he starts thinking more about his parents. Most particularly, the way they'd acted the past several months.
Never once had they shown any disgust in his powers or ghost-half. They gave him more freedoms than they ever had so his job could continue. He had thought the whole family had been growing much closer. Looking back, he realizes how many stupid times he missed signs. Neither had shown anything negative towards his ghost-half, but they hadn't been perfect in their masquerade. He had caught looks from them many times while they watched him fight. Underneath the worry for their son and the adrenaline from fighting, there had been something he had never been able to place that grew stronger each time he saw that look. Now he sees what it was. Resolve. Cold and impossibly blind.
The computer ding brings him out of his reverie. He looks at the screen to see that there are no problems with any of the software or mechanics. He sighs and looks around again. He had honestly been hoping something would be wrong with it just so there would be a task to do. In almost three years, he hadn't had this much free time as there was always something. Whether it was as simple as hanging out with Sam and Tucker or as difficult as homework or fighting ghosts, he was always moving. Sure, he complained about never having time to himself sometimes, but he never wanted a lot of it. He especially doesn't want this sort of situation every time he does want some time alone.
He gets up from the chair and looks around yet again then gets an idea. He goes back upstairs and starts looking around. It only takes a minute or two to find the cleaning supplies, and he gathers the items he deems necessary and takes them back down to the lab before going back upstairs and into the kitchen. The refrigerator had been cleaned out for probably months before the Disasteroid incident as Vlad had been living in Amity Park for a long time before then, but that didn't mean there would be no food in the house. Danny pokes his head through the pantry door, his eyes lighting up the dark room. He grins to himself and steps inside the rest of the way before grabbing a few cans of varying contents and a can opener. Just as always, Vlad had been prepared for something to happen or possibly just wished to avoid having to send someone shopping whenever he came to this estate.
Danny opens the can of beef ravioli, digs out a mostly clean bowl from the cabinets, and sticks the food in the microwave as all the power had been kept on with payments coming automatically out of Vlad's account like he had set up beforehand. The company claimed they weren't legally allowed to stop it without authorization from the payer. Nobody bothered to point out that they were just wanting money because nobody thought it necessary to save money for Vlad. While it heats up, he opens the can of peaches and the can of carrots. He finishes cooking the ravioli and carrots before setting all three dishes beside each other with utensils. He sits down and braces himself before morphing back to human form. He immediately feels light-headed and his stomach growls impatiently. He would have to be more careful about eating often enough.
"Maybe I should try sleeping in ghost form for a while," he groans before shakily beginning to eat. As he starts getting food in him, the shaking slowly stops, as do the others effects. They don't fill him completely, but he's not hungry anymore, either. As soon as he finishes, he morphs back to ghost form to prevent himself from getting hungry again too quickly. He then cleans up his mess before going back downstairs and beginning to clean up the lab.
It takes a couple hours to get it all done, but he's proud of himself once he finishes. The lab is the cleanest room in the house and definitely the safest. Danny puts away the cleaning supplies and washes his hands (the water company had said the same) before going back outside. It's still in the afternoon, but he can easily just fly slower to get back in the evening. He launches himself into the sky but freezes as his ghost sense goes off and he hears a familiar whining of machinery.
He whirls around to see a projectile coming at him. Danny immediately dodges the glowing net, managing to get out of its range in time.
"Skulker! What are you doing out?!" he exclaims before throwing himself out of the way of another net, watching the afore mentioned enemy. The cyborg ghost doesn't reply but simply continues shooting at Danny, switching over to missiles now. Danny destroys them in midair with a couple ice beams and shoots a stronger one at Skulker. He darts out of the way, but the beam clips his arm, freezing the gun which had been out. Skulker yelps.
"That was an expensive upgrade, whelp!"
"Don't care! Maybe if you didn't try killing me every single time you got a new upgrade, I wouldn't destroy then right away!" Skulker scowls and fires at him again, this time with a shoulder gun. Danny gives him a look and simply makes his body to have a hole in it.
"Seriously? A straight shot? Pretty sure the last time you tried that was the first time we met. Is the Great Hunter out of moves?" Danny grins at Skulker, loving the feeling of normalcy this was giving him. The grin disappears as Skulker gives him one back.
"Not at all, Ghost Child," he says just before Danny's rammed in the side. The force throws him to the ground, and he feels a rib crack. He looks up, scowling at the flame-haired ghost beside the hunter.
"How's it going, Dipstick?" Ember asks, smiling in a sickly sweet way at him. Danny gets up from his crater and leaps into the air again, the rib already almost healed beneath his skin.
"Admittedly worse now that you two are out. How did you even get out of the Ghost Zone this time? The Portal's sealed shut. Plus, what are you going here of all places?"
"Oh, please. You can't be forgetting the fact that there are Natural Portals, can you?" Ember asks, her tone making the "Duh" unneeded. She glances over at Skulker quickly, though.
"Oh, sure, it was pure luck that you found one right next to Vlad's where there's a non-natural Portal right next to it. I totally believe that." The sarcasm cheers Danny up even more. Everything had been so serious the past couple days, but this moment would be different. The comment give him the desired affect as well. The ghostly couple glares at him for a moment before nodding to each other and spreading apart to be on either side of Danny.
Danny puts a hand out towards each of them, palms glowing green then does something that surprises his adversaries. He closes his eyes and keeps them that way. Skulker and Ember share a look with each other before nodding again. Ember pulls around her guitar and slams an ice blue chord just as Skulker fires two missiles, both glowing blue.
Danny smirks to himself.
I finally started with the action I've been promising! And left you guys with a cliffhanger in the middle of it :) XD Just remember, no matter how much I torture you all, I love my readers!~ :D F, F, & R!~