Chapter 9
The Hospital staff had to sedate him again to stop him from screaming. Gabriel only learned later that he had been screaming his friends' names over and over again between just screaming in general. And now it was the afternoon and they were changing his casts. They're really dead, he thought as the nurse did his job. I should have stopped this from happening… His casts were changed and the nurse asked, "Do you need anything else?" Gabriel's parents told him no and he left, leaving Gabriel and his parents in his room, Anna and Michael were at the Hospital cafeteria eating lunch. "Why did He let this happen?" Gabriel finally asked. "Mike, Lily, Kory, Lucas…Mrs. Grant, none of them did anything to deserve dying for," he went on, bitter tears pouring down his face. "I should have been faster. I should have been able to contain the blast, I know I could have stopped this if I had been faster," Gabriel said and his Mom held his left hand while his Dad held his right.
"None of us has all the answers, Gabriel," his Mom told him, "All we can do is accept the things we can't change, and do our best to change the things we can." "But I could have changed it," Gabriel told her, "I saw them starting to glow and I should have known faster that they would blow up. Why was it me that had to fail? Why did it have to be my friends?" his parents didn't have an answer for that.
As the day wore on, Gabriel remained silent, but inside he felt boiling rage course through him. Like a flow of lava from an erupting volcano it slowly filled him. They killed them! Those bastards killed them! But outside Gabriel appeared calm, he would not vent at his parents, or his siblings, they didn't cause his friend's deaths. The Purifiers…who gave them the right to call me a monster!? What makes them think that they can get away with this!? I'll kill them! I'll tear them all apart as soon as I'm healed! Then a thought occurred to him, only the two he had fought had blown themselves up…why?
He turned to his Dad and asked, "Why did the ones I fought blow up and not anyone else?" Jerry looked at him and sighed before saying, "Apparently only the ones that attacked us here were rigged for that because we're the most powerful people in our family. That's why they sent four after you and your brother. Your Mother and I both had to take down four each. They underestimated how fast your Mom was in her Plasmius form and she managed to knock them out before they could self-destruct; and I was lucky that they forgot that ghosts can pass through anything that isn't set up to prevent us from passing through it. I just went intangible and tore them out of their suits. Your brother was also lucky, he used some of the Jujitsu moves Alice and her Dad taught him to stun them then knocked them out with his electricity before removing them from their suits. His arm was broken when the ceiling fell on him when the ones you fought blew up."
Gabriel could guess that the story was the same for the rest of his extended family. They all had years more experience than he and his brother, except for their cousin James who had only a month's more experience than them, and Greta and Selma who weren't old enough to fight yet. He felt his stomach turn when he realized that it had all happened because he hadn't made a plan. He was always the impulsive jock, and where did that get him! His Dad held his hand and told him, "This isn't your fault." "No…it's theirs. Those Purifiers are the ones that did all this!" Gabriel said, barely stopping himself from yelling. "They'll pay for this. I'll make them all pay for this!" "Not as you are right now," his Mom told him and Gabriel calmed down.
It was later that evening when the rest of his family was asleep that an idea came to him. I can force my body to heal. The young halfa remembered a story his Uncle Jack told him about how when he was younger he had stopped a prison breakout, but had been wounded fighting the prisoners. He was still in his Ghost Form and had managed to force his body to heal the damage. Over the summer when he had been at Amity Park with his whole family helping rebuild his Aunt Chloe had taught him and Michael how to sense their bodies' individual cells to allow them to absorb ghost rays and send them back to their attackers. Gabriel cleared his mind and concentrated, slightly activating his Ghost powers without going Ghost fully. He could sense the damaged parts of his body and decided to heal his head first. Alright, no bleeding in my brain, but it feels like its slightly bruised or something. Come on cells, start multiplying and healing.
It felt like his brain was about to explode, but Gabriel gritted his teeth and kept it up until he was sure that his head was fully healed. Gabriel opened his eyes and took a deep breath. That was harder than I thought. Then he thought about his friends that were dead, and how the Purifiers were still out there and his rage built up, filling him with energy, I won't stop! He concentrated once more and focused on his ribs. Seven ribs broken…this is gonna hurt… Gabriel concentrated even harder, forcing his ribs to rebuild themselves and shape up. Gabriel had to grab his pillow with his teeth and bite down to keep from screaming at the pain until finally, the exhausted teenager passed out.
If you're wondering where Jack stopped a prison breakout, read 'Jack Phantom: Life Goes On'. Things are going to get more exciting now, I promise.