Chapter 12

It felt good to be in his regular clothes as Gabriel and his family waited outside the Hospital. Michael had on his clothes too, and a cast on as well. They all stood silently as they waited for their extended family to arrive. The sky was clear and sunny though it was kind of chilly and Gabriel kept his eyes in the skies in case the Purifiers should try to attack them. "It's them," Anna said, and pointed. Gabriel saw his Grandparents arrive in the old Fenton Family Assault Vehicle followed by Aunt Chloe and Uncle Roger's black van and Uncle Jack's and Aunt April's green pickup truck.

The Fenton Family Assault Vehicle pulled up and Grandpa Danny opened his door. He had on his usual red shirt and black leather jacket and red shoes, but his beard looked slightly unkempt and his bright blue eyes looked even more tired than ever before as he opened up the side door and told them, "Get in." Gabriel's family went in quietly, everyone nervous as they sat down. "Where are we going?" his Dad asked his Grandfather. Danny told him, "We're heading for your house. I managed to convince Governor Blue that the National Guard would need to protect it; they'll be waiting for us." "The National Guard, Dad that's…" "It's necessary, Jerry. We still don't know anything about the Purifier's numbers or who is backing them up. We need all the help we can get," Grandma Sam told him. Jerry sighed and wiped his messy hair back, "I never thought it would come to this." "None of us did," Grandpa Danny told him as they pulled up to their house.

"Oh my God," Marie exclaimed as she saw the hundreds of uniformed men and women stationed outside their home. They all went in to their house and saw Grandma Regina inside. She hugged her family close and asked Grandpa Danny, "Tell me you can fix this." Grandma Sam said, "Kids, you need to go upstairs while we talk." Gabriel looked around at all the adults in his family. Aunt Chloe looked tired, Uncle Roger had his hand bandaged and was walking funny in his Human disguise and looked annoyed, Aunt April and Uncle Jack looked angry, though Uncle Jack's partially burned face made his expression minimal. Grandma Sam and Grandpa Danny looked determined and Grandma Regina looked both afraid and hopeful.

Gabriel and his siblings and cousins all went upstairs to his room where they stood around, all quiet and trying to think. He looked around at all his cousins, the past year had been hard on them and they all looked changed. JJ was wearing a red jacket and black shirt and jeans with brown boots; he had let his hair grow out a little since he had last seen him. June was wearing a grey sweater and black pants with matching boots and had cut her hair short. Cooper looked a little more muscular in a short sleeved white shirt and regular dark blue jeans with green sneakers and a denim jacket, he wasn't smiling like he usually did.

Eve was wearing a long red duster with brown pants and boots that he recognized was one of her anime outfits, from Trigun he thought it was called. She had bags under her eyes and had a scar on her forehead from the Amity Park invasion earlier in the year. Ivan was wearing a black jumpsuit with white gloves and boots along with a black leather jacket, it was clear that he hadn't been happy either since he had yet to master his new air powers. James was wearing jeans and blue sneakers and shirt with a long brown coat while Greta was wearing a similar outfit as Ivan's while Selma wore a green dress with blue leggings and purple shoes. Greta was scowling at being left out of adult stuff again while Selma was breathing hard and squeezing Gabriel's pillow looking terrified at everything going on.

After standing there for ten minutes just looking at each other, June finally spoke. "Gabriel, I heard what happened to your friends. I'm so sorry." Gabriel snorted and told her, "Don't be, it's not your fault. It's theirs," his eyes glowed green as he said this. "Gabriel, this isn't the time to get pissed off, save it for later," Eve told him. "What are we going to do?" Selma asked, looking around at her older cousins. June sat down next to her and rubbed her back as she told her, "We're going to find the bad guys, and then we're going to beat them up so they can't come after us again." "But they blow themselves up like the terrorists did during the early 21st century! They blew up Gabriel and Michael's school and killed 57 people so far! They don't care who they hurt!" Selma screamed into Gabriel's pillow.

"That's not going to happen again," June told her. "P-promise?" Selma quietly asked her. June smiled and told her, "I promise we'll all be safe." "Yeah, they can't pull that stunt again; we'll be ready for them this time. We know how to fight them now," JJ said. "How did you guys avoid that?" Michael asked them. JJ spoke up, "They only sent one guy to go after me, June, and Cooper. He never had a chance and we tore his suit apart in three minutes." Eve then spoke up, "They sent one each for me, James, and Ivan. I used copies to keep him distracted and then cut off his jetpack with my claws." "Ditto," James told him. "I made a small tornado and then phased the girl that came after me out of her suit before she could recover, blew chunks afterwards though," Ivan said.

Greta then spoke up, "I was too fast for him; one guy came after me and Selma. Selma used her shield to keep him distracted so I could cut off his jetpack; he fell down hard and was knocked out cold." So many ways I could have stopped them… Gabriel shook his head and said, "I should have done something like that. I tried to shock them but they kept on coming." "Yeah, Mom tried to use her Ghost Stinger on them and it didn't work either," James said, "Dad broke his hand when he punched them the wrong way, doctor said it was a 'boxer's fracture'."

"They're cocky, and I have the feeling that they haven't mastered using those suits yet," JJ said. "That might change, Dad did all he could to make the Halfa Suit easy to use, he wanted to make it as practical as he could so that he could sell them to the Government for that 'Federal Ghost Fighting' unit Grandpa's been trying to get them to make," Michael told him. Everyone thought about that and Eve finally said, "We need to figure out what our parents are going to do. Who's going to spy on them?" No one was quick to volunteer; they all didn't want to risk being grounded if they were caught. "I'll do it," Gabriel finally volunteered. "Don't get too close, remember to focus your hearing," Eve suggested and Gabriel went Ghost then floated down to see his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were gathered in his living room talking.

He stayed invisible and focused on listening to their conversation. "You need to make those glasses fast Jerry; I don't like the idea of these psychos flying around invisibly. I can't even smell them right because of those metal suits," he heard his Uncle Roger tell his Dad. "You think I do? This isn't a comic where I can just whip up something in an hour. I've had to watch my kids in the Hospital, in case Michael's cast and Anna's stitches didn't tell you that. And they've stopped attacking invisibly after Michael obtained one of their glasses. I think that's not the issue. The issue is tracking them, the laptop Michael acquired was already wiped, by a magnet by the looks of it, scrambled the data to the point that it's useless. What I've been working on is to make glasses to track their emissions so we can track them to a base, and maybe get a laptop that is actually useful," Jerry told him.

"Can't we just put a bug on them instead?" Aunt April suggested. Gabriel's Mom shook her head and told her, "We designed the suits to have nonstick surfaces in case of ghost poisons or acids, or if a technology ghost like Technus ever tried that. The only weakness off the suit is the inexperience of the person in it and that they can't mimic our power output, that was a deliberate design flaw to keep it from being a WMD." "And the self destructing suits?" Uncle Roger questioned. Marie sighed and said, "That was their own addition, one of the first things we had to figure out was preventing the suits from exploding. Though I think they had to get rid of the reflecting nanites that allowed the invisibility function of the suit to add it. Luckily, reverse engineering their anti-invisibility glasses will be easy." "Yeah, maybe, but the real question is who is going to be the bait to lure them out?" Grandpa Danny finally asked.

"That would be me," Marie finally said. All the adults nodded at this, "You are the fastest of us, you can keep up with them, grab a laptop if it's there, and get back here in time to warn us if they follow," Uncle Jack said. "Alright, we have a plan, let's go tell the kids," Aunt Chloe said and Gabriel flew back to his room to tell his siblings and cousins.