In the light and alive.
Epíphantos
Chapter Nine:
Sea of Stars
They were cheering. So loud that it resounded off every icy surface, redirecting straight into her eardrums, into her heart. To Sam, they sounded like cries of war. It was insane.
She recoiled at the sound, just as her jaw dropped. Why were they cheering for her? It made no sense. None whatsoever. Her face must have said it all, because when she happened to look away from the crowd, she noticed that Frostbite, Elle, and Phantom were watching her in amusement.
"You know how I told you that you were infamous in the ghost zone?" Phantom said. "Here it's not necessarily a bad thing."
"My son is correct," Frostbite agreed, nodding his massive head. "You are the enemy of our enemy, so therefor it makes us allies, in a sense. There is not a single yeti here who hasn't heard of your exploits. You are a legend, Sam, and for that we are all thankful."
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xXx
.
The weeks that followed Sam's introduction into the Yeti society passed quickly, blurred by her mounting paranoia as well as her confinement in the foreign realm. Much of her time was spent with the ever-calculative—yet oddly maternal—Frostbite, as he worked to teach her the interwoven structure of yeti sociology. The early hours of each day were spent with him in his study, and Sam would warm her hands over the crackling fire as he lectured her on things beyond her understanding.
"So, let me get this straight," Sam said to him one morning as she nursed a cup of hot tea, "you're telling me that the Far Frozen is actually one of several dimensions to a single multiverse, and we're somehow quantum-mechanically linked together, and that each world has its own alternative history and laws of nature and relativity . . .?"
"That's a bit of a crude translation, but you have the right idea, I suppose."
Sam scoffed and shook her head. "I don't understand any of this crap."
"I am merely trying to explain to you why it is the yeti are the way they are."
"Quantum-mechanically, right?"
Frostbite sighed. "Of any of the existing realms, the yeti are the most similar to humans, both biologically and socially." He reached over and stoked the fire. Sam eyed his icy arm as he did so and was only mildly surprised when it maintained its solidity. "We are a result of convergent evolution. Two unrelated species that have acquired similar traits because of adaption to an analogous environment, and because we both maintain a similar niche in our ecosystems."
"And you're telling me this why?"
"Because information is essential to understanding the paradox of our universe!"
Sam's eye twitched. It was like Fenton Lectures all over again.
.
.
Her afternoons were less intellectually taxing, spent with Tsuel as the two of them ambled about the small village of Ec'Nelis, visiting various shops and interacting with the townsfolk. Despite the cheers she garnered upon her introduction, the Yetis' enthusiasm for her presence quickly dwindled down into wary toleration. They never spoke directly to her, only to Tsuel, and when she looked at them they turned away, avoiding her like the plague. Children were banned by their mothers from coming anywhere near her.
Even Tsuel refused to bring her child around.
"It's not you, dear," Tsuel had said by way of explanation. "I personally think you're harmless. But the yeti are especially protective of children. Not many females are able to conceive, so to us, children are a treasured rarity. They would not appreciate my bringing her around you quite yet."
Sam had nodded solemnly to that.
It was exhausting, to say the least.
Even though they didn't speak to her, Sam couldn't help but be intrigued by the functioning unit of the village as a whole. The yeti were thoughtful, humble creatures, many of whom shared a passion for knowledge and intellectual stimuli. Though their town was ice and their homes were mere huts, their scientific advancements were amazing. The castle, as Sam came to understand, was where the yeti conducted their research.
What was the most surprising thing to her was the abundance of other creatures besides the yeti. Similar to the way her world functioned, the Far Frozen was a diverse ecosystem, with the yeti as the hierarchy, and many other creatures of lesser intellect supporting them. White-furred Doglike creatures with hooked faces and talon claws ran about the town freely, chasing laughing yeti children and occasionally being treated to morsels of food scraps, tossed into the pathways between huts by the occasional yeti.
She noticed one day with glee that there were birds, too! They flew through the skies and landed on the high rises of huts. Sam never got close enough to see them, but from the distance she could see that they were a darker grey with the faintest hints of blue at their wingtips and tail feathers. Their beaks were large and curved. Good for digging into the ice, she was told.
There were many others that Sam had yet to see, but, of all the creatures, what amazed her most were the horses.
They were monstrous—big enough to support a yeti—and six legged. Their tails were long and sinuous, with course fringe at the ends. Two large curling hours led into a wide, flat head, and a muscular neck. Big chests, along with thick legs and cleft hooves, made them excellent ice runners. The colors and patterns of their fur varied, but mostly consisted of various hues grey accented with faint blue markings, very similar to the color scheme of the typical yeti. From what Tsuel told her, they were used for transportation, and hunting the yakk, the yeti's main food source.
Sam was an environmental enthusiast at heart, so everything she learned about this new world amazed her. Learning, coupled with observation, was excellent for distraction. It kept her from thinking of home.
Almost.
.
.
At night she was always locked away.
As soon as the sun began to dip into the horizon, illuminating the otherworldly moons, Sam would be led back to her room without preamble. There, she would spend the remaining hours of wakefulness curled before the fireplace in her new room, wondering to herself about the fate of her kin. In truth, she preferred the loneliness. The more time she spent with Tsuel and in the town, the more attached she became. Her morals, her principles—everything that ever had defined her as a Warrior—were slipping away, bit by bit, and it was leaving her more confused than ever.
She had never been so conflicted about anything in her life. Sam prided herself in being the level-headed, resolute woman that she was. She had her ideals, coinciding with the thick tapestries of her pride. Never before now had she doubted herself, and never before now had she had a reason to.
And it scared her.
.
.
Sometimes, she would wake to the rumbling of close-proximity explosions.
The first time it happened, she had panicked.
She'd jolted out of her cot, her feet coming to rest on the quaking floor. Thoughts of being buried alive and suffocation flooded to the forefront of her mind. It was claustrophobia, instilled in her from her years forcibly spent underground. She went rabid, clawing at the divider of ice separating her from freedom.
"Let me out of here!" she screamed! "Let me out!"
No one came, and she screamed until her voice was raw and hoarse. She hugged her knees with her face pressed to the freezing barrier, tears streaking down her cheeks and her dignity long since abandoned while the hours passed. She fell asleep there.
The next day, the town was in shambles. By the time she emerged from the mountain castle with Tsuel, the yeti were already working to restore it, unified and efficient. Many of them were wounded. No one answered her questions, not even Tsuel, and it was the first day she'd spent in the Far Frozen that she didn't see a single smile, nor hear the utterance of laughter.
It was easier to handle the second time it happened, and even more so by the third. By the tenth time, her sixth week there, she'd simply stayed in her bed and listened.
.
.
And then there was Danny. No, Phantom.
He was an enigma she couldn't solve. During her afternoon walks with Tsuel, she would often see him about the town, sometimes in the company of Elle, and other times alone. When she thought back to their first encounter in Amity, she recalled his abrasiveness, as well as his irritating air of superiority. He had been so intimidating then, as loath as she was to admit it (even to herself), but now . . .?
When she saw him in the town he was thin-lipped smiles, nods of acknowledgment, and a posture rigid enough to make even her snooty motherproud. He hardly spoke, but when he did it was equally polite and authoritative. Strictly politics. He didn't laugh, and he didn't mingle. Not like the yeti did, anyway. It irritated Sam that she couldn't make sense of who—or what, rather—he was. He was never consistent enough for her to understand.
Tsuel grimaced when she mentioned it one afternoon. They two of them were working diligently in the castle's kitchen, preparing lunch for themselves as well as prepping for dinner. Tsuel worked with the meats, while Sam prepared the fruit and vegetable platters.
"Yes, if I know anything about that boy is that he can be a bit stiff," she said. Her claws clattered against the stone tabletops of the kitchen's counters as she bustled about.
"Why is he like that with the yeti though? Frostbite isn't like that?" Sam asked as she worked, jumping to avoid Tsuel's swinging tail. Despite the enormity of the castle, the kitchen was rather cramped. She and Tsuel had quickly developed a system to avoid collision.
Tsuel sighed. "His relationship with the other yeti is complicated. They adore and respect him, as I'm sure you've noticed, but when so much weight is placed on the shoulders of a boy as young as he, well, it tends to make interactions a bit tricky."
Sam's brows pinched. "Why?"
Another sigh, though this one crossed the threshold of exasperation. "Sam, dear, I don't know if you've noticed, but the townsfolk have placed Danny—and Ellie, too, really—on a pedestal. They expect so much from him." She paused to meet Sam's gaze and her eyes gleamed with sadness. "It is hard for me to see him this way. So grown up and aloof. But once you get to know him he truly has a heart of gold. I should know, seeing as I've practically raised him. When he was a cub he was nothing but smiles and laughs . . . " She trailed off and her fangs bit at her lip. White-furred knuckles fisted themselves into the fabric of her apron.
Again, the strange feeling about the phantom twins growing—being raised—returned, pooling within the back of her mind and niggling at her, almost as if she was missing something obvious. It made no sense to her. Even if the yeti were not, Phantom and his bitch of a sister were definitely ghosts. Her ectosensors confirmed it when she'd nullified Phantom's intangibility upon their initial meeting.
Just then, another thought occurred to her. "How old is he, anyway?" she asked.
Tsuel dropped the cup of seasoning she was holding. It clattered as it hit the floor, rolling and spilling its contents, before coming to rest at the toe of Sam's boot.
"I'm sorry, dear," Tsuel said quickly, "what was that again?"
Sam's brow furrowed. "I asked you how old Danny is. You said you raised him. From what, a child? A pile of unformed ectoplasm? I mean, he is a ghost, right?" Trained as she was to recognize the subliminal changes of facial expression, Sam noticed immediately when Tsuel's amber eyes widened, along the imperceptible slacking of her jaw.
After a few moments of stunned silence, Tsuel whispered, "Frostbite would not like me talking about this."
Sam heaved a sigh and bent to pick up the stone cup at her feet. If it was one thing Sam knew about Tsuel, it was that the warmhearted yeti often spoke without thinking, and inadvertently gave away more information than was probably acceptable. It was one of the things Sam loved about her.
"Listen, I'm sorry," Sam said, smiling as shamefacedly as she could manage. "I don't mean to weird you out so much by asking questions. The last thing I want to do is get you in trouble with Sir Rambles-a-lot. I'm just trying to make sense of all"—she gestured around the room, as if it in itself explained the vastness of her woes—"this, y'know?"
"Yes, yes, I know, dear. I know." Tsuel huffed, though her tone was soft with empathy. She turned to face Sam, leaning her haunches against the counter. "And I would love nothing more than to tell you all I know about him. About them. But honestly, even I don't know that much about them. I don't know where they came from, or why they are here. What I do know is that Frostbite loved them unconditionally from the moment that they were brought here. And well, so did I."
Sam began to roll the cup around in her hands, watching carefully as Tsuel's muzzle curved into a faint, reminiscent smile. She too leaned back on the counter in thought. "Everything is so weird here. All I've ever known is Amity Park, and war, and destroying ghosts—" Realizing what she said, her eyes slid sideways to catch the yeti's reaction, hoping Tsuel wasn't offended.
Tsuel caught on immediately. "Ghosts have only recently been accepted here into our society as well," she said, much to Sam's astonishment. "It was quite the phenomenon for us, too. For so many years now, the Far Frozen—as well as many of the other realms—has been at war with them. Our males hunted them out of our realm on a daily basis, massacring them like vermin. Like you, we never thought they could be anything . . . more."
Sam's incredulity lit her face like fire. She certainly didn't see this coming. "What changed?" she breathed.
Tsuel's eyes met hers again causing a rush of understanding to surge within her. Her jaw nearly hit the floor.
"It was him, wasn't it?" Sam exclaimed, unable to contain herself. "Pha—I mean, Danny. It was both of them."
"It was."
She wanted to ask more, but her better judgment kept her from doing so once she noticed how guarded Tsuel had suddenly become. Clam down, Manson, she told herself, you won't get anywhere by interrogating her. But the urge to know was driving her insane! So much so that she had to bite her lip to keep from asking anyway.
Pushing away from the counter, Sam returned to her menial task of pulverizing oversized veggies into something suitable enough for her consumption. She tried her best to focus on the rhythmic chop, chop, chop of the knife in her hands, but it pierced the air like screams. Tsuel was never this quiet. There was tension, and Sam wished more than ever that she could use the knife to cut it instead of the vegetables.
"He's twenty, by the way."
Sam faltered and almost cut her finger. "W-what?"
"The human categorization of time would make him to be twenty years old."
Sam took a moment to steady herself before she began chopping again, nodding silently in response. She pretended as if everything was fine, that the world continued to spin on its axis, and that Tsuel hadn't just dropped the biggest bombshell yet.
There was no way any ghost could be as strong as Phantom after only twenty years of existence, not without disregarding the theory of ecto-molecular expansion and radiation, developed by the one and only Madeline Fenton—a theory that had just recently been recognized as fact by the Guys in White's databases. What that meant, Sam wasn't sure, but she did know that whatever it was, it was big.
Behind her, Sam heard the clacking of Tsuel's claws as the yeti resumed her task of preparing food.
Conversation had been sparse after that.
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xXx
.
"I missed this."
He watched as the wind tousled the wild fringe of Elle's bangs, her fingers weaving meticulously through strands of hair. They sat together, propped up on an outcrop that extended from the mountain and overlooked the celestial curve of moons. Their legs swung as free as their ease. It had been a long time since they spent time together like this.
Danny smiled. He nudged Elle's side with his elbow. "I did too."
Elle hummed in reply. She leaned backwards, stretching her arms behind her head. Then, completely taking him by surprise, she asked, "So what really happened back in the human realm?"
He balked and turned to look at her, wide-eyed. "What?"
"You heard me."
Now that he as looking at her, he noted the near instant narrowing of her eyes as well as the determined set of her jaw. The silence remained unbroken.
"Oh come on, Danny," she whined. "I'm not as fragile as you think I am. I can handle it."
"I don't think you're fragile," Danny snapped, crossing his arms. "I already told you everything. Nothing else happened."
Elle glowered at him.
"I'm serious, Elle," Danny said darkly, unleashing his own glare. Acid green flashed in the silver light.
"Your angry eyes don't work on me, idiot."
Danny rolled his eyes and huffed exasperatedly, redirecting his gaze over the expanse of sky and ice at their feet. He could feel Elle watching him, but he ignored her. Instead he leaned forward, letting his body conform itself to the drafts of wind that billowed around him. He dipped into his power core, into the weightlessness of flight, and then suddenly he was a streaking shadow across the twilight. He felt the atmosphere shift as his sister followed him.
They floated silently through the skies, far above the twirling mass of clouds, letting the frigid air tickle their cheeks. The yakkskin white of their clothing was stark against the inky sky.
After only a heartbeat of silence, Elle's impatience overcame her. "Okay, so we're floating dramatically over Cinomrah," she said, feigning boredom. "Get one with the deep, dark emotional speech that you think I'm apparently too much of a wimp to handle."
Danny narrowed his eyes at her. "When did you become so domineering?"
"The same time you became a reclusive butt."
"I'm not a reclusive butt."
"Yes you are, actually."
They faced each other in a silent war of wills while the world of stars and clouds continued to spin around them. Finally, Elle sighed and drifted close enough to him so that she could touch his arm.
"Look," she said, "I'm in this war just as much as you are. You have to stop treating me like I can't handle myself. What happened to me is in the past and I'm over it. Please, Danny, I need to know what I'm up against."
Danny frowned at her. When had his sister become so mature? Sure, they were technically the same age, but Danny had always seen her as someone he needed to protect, to shelter away from the evils of the world. He wanted her to remain innocent. After what happened to her in the material world four years ago, he never wanted to see her marred again.
Her jade eyes met his, allowing understanding to flit between them. The war had changed him, and as much as he'd hoped that it wouldn't, he could see now that it had changed Elle, too. It was inevitable. There was no innocence in the world that they lived in.
Danny's jaw clenched and he looked away from her. His eyes traced the luminescent glow of the twin moons. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything," she said. "Starting from the beginning."
There was a moment of silence in which Danny collected his thoughts. Then he nodded in resignation and told her.
.
.
There is fire as Danny materializes through the portal. He turns and looks behind him. There, he sees his father and sister standing amongst the other yeti, their image flickering and warped through the rippling surface of the portal's energy. He almost wants to step back in, return home, but instead he swallows his fear. The humming of his core falters as the portal dissipates.
Danny floats intangibly amongst the debris of gnarled buildings and roadways. Fire, smoke, and the stinking odor of burnt flesh are pungent in his nose. Rotting human corpses are strewn haphazardly about. His eyes linger on them only briefly before he continues on. He tucks the Infi-Map his father had given to him into his coat pocket, his eyes hardening with resolution. He has a job to do.
The skyline of Amity Park appears before him, and he presses onward. The outside towns that enfold in either direction are beyond help. Everywhere he looks, he sees destruction and chaos. Looking upward, he notices that the sky is an ectoplasmic green, rather than the blue he had always dreamt about.
As he enters the borderline of city, he is immediately greeted by the visage of angry humans.
Danny balks and ascends higher into the air. He cloaks himself further by drifting into the Middle, ignoring the translucent bodies of unformed souls as they slither through the air around him. He can now easily differentiate between the humans through the color of their auras, though his nose wrinkles with distaste as he smells their fear and desperation. Unlike the other ghosts, Danny has never taken a liking to human fear.
The humans are arguing, but about what he isn't sure. Their auras are flickering, an ever changing mass of color that is tinged with the malodorous scents of their emotions. Danny watches them curiously. Aside from the Whitecoats, he has never seen humans before. He knows he should hate them, but he has already noticed that the clothing of these humans is black, which he ponders with confusion.
In his is realm, clothing is harvested from the great wondering Yakks that are native to the icy plateaus surrounding Ec'Nelis. All yeti, he and his sister included, bear clothing of these great beasts. The soft whites and deep blues of the creatures' furs are a symbol of unity within the yeti society. Perhaps the reason for the difference in coloration of these humans signifies a variance from the Whitecoats? He finds himself floating closer.
His father had warned him that the humans have ways of identifying ghosts by their ectosignatures, so Danny is relieved when they do not seem to sense him at all. Their true forms are hazy as he watches them through the film that separates him from physical existence, but as he nears they become silhouetted by the intensity of their fear. The sharp cinnamon taste of anger is there, too.
The humans' voices are pitched, grating against his sensitive years. They are hollering at each other. Other male humans form a semicircle around the louder ones, but they do not seem to be watching the argument unfold at all. Instead they are staring into the vast sea of destruction around them. One of them, Danny notices, is shaking. The terrified man's fingers clutch at the strange item in his hands.
Just then, Danny's hyperactive senses are sent into overdrive.
They come out nowhere. Danny recoils as he takes in their numbers. There are easily hundreds of them—if not thousands—as they come seeping out of the clouded mass of smoke and debris. The familiar chill of his ghostsense rolls off his tongue repetitively as the specters assemble around the humans. They are simple ghosts, and should hardly be able to stabilize themselves in the ecto-deficient environment, yet they filter effortlessly, as if their cores are limitless.
Unsure of what to do, Danny watches cagily. He notices when some of the ghosts sense him, though they do not act upon their discovery. They simply float, their translucent bodies rippling, as if they are awaiting something akin to a command. The humans do not notice.
"This world is goin' to fucking hell, John!" one of the angry men screams. "And those fucking rats left us here. Said there ain't no more room for us. Those fucking pigs!"
"Well what the hell do you want me to do!" the other man, John, hollers back. "We need to get the fuck outta here before those spooks come after us too. Before they rip us apart, just like they did your wife and daughter. Is that what you want? Do you want us all to die now, you callous fuck!?"
The first man laughs. It is the bitterest laugh Danny has ever heard. "You really think we're gonna walk away from this? We're already dead! The fuckhead ghost, Pariah Dark, destroyed the shields. Amity Park is fuckin' gone, and you really think we're actually going to walk away?" Another laugh. "You're fucking diluted, Sean."
"You know what? I think you should keep your fucking voice down."
"And I think you should kiss my hairy a—"
Danny watches as Sean raises the object in his hand, pointing it at John. It is then that Danny makes the connection that it is a weapon.
The revelation causes a knot to form in his stomach. He wants to react, to do something, but before he even has a chance the world around him shatters. The sound alone sends him reeling, and he shies away from the humans, clutching at his ears. As he turns, he watches what was once John's face as it explodes and hemorrhages, dark grey matter and splinters of bone accentuating the dark river of the man's blood.
There is a split second of time in which the headless corpse remains standing, grossly suspended by whatever life force still remains in the man's body. Then, right as John's dimming aura flickers from the dark red of anger into the yellows and greens of desperation and fear, the corpse falls to its knees, to its stomach, and finally goes still.
"What the fuck, Sean?" one of the men from the semicircle says. "What the fuck?"
Danny cringes when Sean shoots that man, too. He raises his weapon to the other humans, swinging it from man to man.
"Anybody else?" Sean screams. "Anyone fucking else wanna cross me? I ain't fucking dying here like this, not now, not because of any of you sorry ass fucks!"
Sean's once angry aura is now a dark, dark green. Pure terror. He spins and shoots another, for no reason other than the man had tripped backing away from him. This is when Danny decides that enough is enough.
They sense him immediately. He can tell because they all spin to face him as he materializes. Pushing through the seam of physical existence, Danny is immediately onslaught by the amplification of their emotions, no longer dulled by the Middle's influence. Their fear quickly morphs into an integral sense of self-preservation, a burning need to destroy him and run. It halts him momentarily, as he has never been around humans long enough to experience such sentimental force.
They fire in unison, but Danny recovers quickly enough to become intangible. He ignores the throb at his temples as his body reacts to their dread. The humans are screaming now, firing freely. New, smaller weapons are pulled from their belts. These ones release strong ectoplasmic charges.
It takes Danny a half a second to realize that the humans are no longer firing at him, but at the horde of apparitions that have suddenly descended on them like a shroud of death. The supposedly weak and insignificant ghosts are apathetic, a massive conglomeration of teeth and somehow powerfully charged cores that begin tearing senselessly into the humans.
"No!" Danny screams, though he isn't sure why. Even these black-suited humans have demonstrated a monstrosity similar to the Whitecoats. He shouldn't care about them. His job is to rescue those of his own kind not yet taken by Pariah Dark's influence, to lead them through natural portals and to his home realm where they would be safe.
But he can't turn away from them—he just can't. It isn't right.
Danny's form solidifies once more and he begins firing at the ghosts. The apparitions' cores are abnormally strong, but Danny's core is still much stronger. He obliterates them, one by one. His cries of frustration mingle with the dying wails of the human men. But it is no use. There are too many. His shoulder stings where one of the humans suddenly discharges a weapon on him.
In the end, the humans are swallowed by the horde, and Danny knows there is nothing more for them that he can do. So he flees. Tears streak down his cheeks but he makes no move to brush them away. His shoulder throbs painfully.
He spends the next couple of days this way: witnessing senseless acts of aggression. He watches more and more humans die. He does not come across a single friendly ghost.
Just when Danny thinks that things can't be any shittier, the universe, which holds a perpetual hated for him, proves that things will always get much, much worse.
.
.
Danny's voice trailed off. He screwed his eyes shut and took a deep breath. "There's more, Elle, but . . . I—I'll tell you the rest some other time."
"I always knew humans were monsters," Elle said darkly, "but to turn on their own kind? That's just despicable. And to think we're housing one right now and treating it like it's some kind of war refugee, the monster."
Danny turned and looked at her sharply. "I told you there's more," he said, nonplussed by her attitude. "And don't talk about Sam that way. You don't even know her!"
Elle went livid. "And neither do you! I don't understand why you don't keep defending it. It would kill you if it could, Danny, why can't you see that?!"
"Sam's different. You heard what Dad said," Danny snapped, crossing his arms.
"Dad is desperate, Danny! We all are!" Elle shouted at him, but then deflated instantly. Her flaming eyes dampened with sorrow. "You haven't been here. You don't know how it's been. Dad doesn't think we can go on much longer. He's scared. When have you ever seen him scared?"
Danny was able to instantly conjure a moment when he'd seen their father scared, but he knew enough not to mention it. Images of Elle, torn apart and soaked with her own ectoplasmic blood, flashed to the forefront of his mind. He shook them away.
"Look," Danny said in a softer tone, "there is more to the story, and there is more to the humans. They can be good too, Elle, I promise. I've seen it."
"In who?" Elle questioned. "Sam?"
Danny thought briefly about how to respond to that, and then nodded. "Yeah," he said lamely. "In Sam."
"This makes absolutely no sense, you know that, right?"
He couldn't help but smile at that. With his elbow, he leaned over and nudged her shoulder. "C'mon, we should probably head home before one of Dad's hearts explodes."
Danny spun in midair, ready to return home, but Elle caught him off guard when she said, "By the way, Danny, I couldn't help but notice that for a human, Sam's really not that bad looking."
Her admission startled him enough to actually cause him to lose his concentration on his power core and he dropped a little bit, sputtering when caught himself. He looked at her, confused. What was she getting at? "Okayyy, and your point is?"
Elle's eyes were narrowed and calculative. "Do you think I'm dumb? I mean, we look like it—her. Like them."
"Yeah, still really not sure where you're going with this."
"You haven't shown any interest in a ghost since Ember."
Suddenly, everything clicked into place.
Danny's eyes widened and he instantly felt the green heat as it flooded to his cheeks. "Elle!" he exclaimed, admonishing her. "I do not have an interest in Sam. We're not even the same species, let alone within the same state of living!"
Elle looked at him sideways, but the narrowed-eyed set of her gaze remained unceasing. "That's a lame excuse considering we're not exactly ghosts, either, idiot."
He glared at her through his blush. "Even still, why would that mean I'd suddenly have interest for a human?"
"I don't know," Elle said, with a flick of her long braid over her shoulder, "you tell me. You're the one defending her."
When Danny didn't immediately respond, Elle took this as her own small form of victory, albeit a very small one. "Look," she said softly, "I'm not saying you love the girl, but she's decent looking, looks to be around our age, and is literally the only creature I have ever met that looks similar to us. We look human, so I get it. I do. But I swear to the Ancients and to Clockwork himself, if something happens and she hurts you"—her eyes flashed murderously—"I will rip. Her. Apart."
Tension was thick between the two phantoms as they each glared the other down. But for once, Danny was the first one to shatter it. He shook his head incredulously, then said, "You are seriously one screwed up individual, you know that?"
Elle smiled sweetly in response.
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xXx
.
Sam sat twirling her fork into her plate of greens while Frostbite, Frostbreath, and Tsuel chatted animatedly to each other about their day. It was just the four of them this time, or at least it was until Phantom and Elle abruptly barreled into the room, both of them falling heavily onto the bench on the other side of the table. Elle wasted no time. She dug viciously into a plate of pink meat, her eyes meeting Sam's once, before looking away.
Sam continued to stir and occasionally munch at her food. All the while, she couldn't help but sneak glimpses at the odd pair of ghosts—or whatever the hell they were—across from her. They seemed strange tonight. Phantom was edgy and flustered. For some reason, he kept shooting frequent and mildly perturbed glances at her, as if her presence at the table was not a habitual occurrence (which, for the past seven weeks, it had been).
It was around the sixth glance in her direction that she finally snapped. "What is your problem?"
From across the table, Phantom's eyes flickered away from hers once, twice, then finally settled and met her gaze. "What?" he responded, feigning ignorance with the high set of his eyebrows.
Sam could feel the four onlookers as they watched on, but she ignored them. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"
"Like what? I'm not looking at you in any way."
"Yes you are, so stop it."
"I told you I'm not—"
They were cut off when Frostbite let out a cough that was anything but subtle.
Not wanting to be the cause of Frostbite's lecture about the importance of dining ethics, Sam resumed their argument in the form of an icy glare. She seethed at him with as much force as she could muster. With every bite she took, she chewed slowly and deliberately, enhancing the mercilessness of her venomous stare. What confused her though was that Phantom never once reciprocated. Instead, when he looked at her, he bore the same wide-eyed expression he'd given her earlier. This happened for a few moments before Phantom brusquely stood, excusing himself from the table completely.
"My, my," Tsuel said as he disappeared through the entryway, "what has gotten into him?"
Elle shrugged. "Who knows?" she trilled dryly. "He's a boy. Boys are stupid."
From the head of the table, Sam watched Frostbite smile. "That's my girl." He ruffled Elle's hair. "Keep saying that, would you?"
.
.
It was late, later than usual, when Tsuel led Sam back to her room. The pair walked quietly, but the silence was comfortable. They had just rounded a corner, when, seemingly out of nowhere, Phantom fell into step beside them at Tsuel's other shoulder.
"Danny!" Tsuel exclaimed, jumping a bit at the suddenness of his appearance. Her clawed hand flew to her chest. "How many times have I told you not to do that!?"
Phantom's smile was contrite. "Heh, sorry," he said. "Why don't you go home, Tsuel? I can take it from here."
Tsuel's brow lifted. "It is no problem to me, Danny," she said. "I quite enjoy the company of Sam." She turned and smiled at the girl in question, her tawny eyes dancing with fondness. Reaching over, she squeezed Sam's shoulder, which caused Sam to blush.
Phantom's eyes flickered from Tsuel to Sam, lingering briefly, before returning to the yeti. "I insist," he said. "It's late. Plus Dad wants me to talk to her about something important."
Tsuel's eyes narrowed. "Something so important that it needs to be said right now at this hour? Let me remind you that I raised you, Danny, and I am quite adept at ascertaining when you are trying to pull the wool over my eyes." Despite what she said, however, she stopped mid-step, ignoring his green flush of embarrassment. "But, fine, if there is something you would like to speak to our dear Sam about, I will leave you to it. Goodnight, Danny. Sam." And then she was gone, disappearing around the bend of the corridor.
Phantom watched her leave. His eyes lingered where the yeti had disappeared, a bit longer than necessary. He shifted uncomfortably under the instant re-arrival of Sam's glare.
Finally, after a long and awkward silence, he said, "Hey."
Sam crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.
"How . . . are things?"
She arched an eyebrow. He sighed.
"C'mon," he murmured, beginning to walk into the direction of her room. "It's late. let's get you back, hm?"
Sam's scowl remained unceasing, but she began following him anyway. What the hell did he want? He'd barely spoken more than three sentences to her in the past few weeks she'd been here. Her steel toed boots stomped unnecessarily hard on the stony floor.
"Look, Sam," he began as they walked under one of the suspended archways. "I just wanted to apologize for the way things've happened."
She eyed him with confusion. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Well, y'know," he said, gesturing lamely about the corridor as they walked. "All of this. I know it's not exactly the most ideal situation."
"If you're apologizing for me being here, you're a little late for that."
He coughed out a laugh, trying in vain to relieve some of the tension. "Yeah. Right. I knew that."
The rest of their walk was silent and increasingly awkward. Sam shook her head disbelievingly at him as he walked with his back to her, a few steps ahead. She couldn't help it when her eyes trailed along his outwardly human form. With her week old conversation with Tsuel still fresh in her mind, she found herself unable to resist contemplating his existence. He was maddeningly impossible to decipher. It was driving her nuts!
As she watched him, though, she found it harder and harder to believe that this was the same Phantom she'd met in Amity. Where he had once been confident and menacing, he was now awkward and shy, tripping over nothing as he walked along the ice-encrusted floors of the mountain castle. During their first meeting, he had been intimidating, exhibiting an insane amount of strength and power, but now? Sam wanted to laugh. It was almost too radical for her to believe anymore.
Then again, Sam reminded herself, this is still the same ghost that fried my gear. There was no disguising that feat, no matter how strange Phantom acted. As Maddie had once told her, ghosts were adept at deception, at twisting the minds of humans. His constant alterations of his demeanor could easily be his way to outmaneuver her. Tsuel, she trusted. Frostbite, she grudgingly accepted as authority. But Phantom? Sam's frown twisted into something nasty. Phantom could never be trusted, because no matter how strange, he was still a ghost, and she would sooner die by her own hand than trust him.
After what seemed like an eternity of walking, they came upon Sam's room. She stormed inside without once looking over her shoulder.
Phantom hovered uncomfortably in the threshold, watching as she scrambled together what was left of her fire.
"So . . .," he began in a conversational voice, "do you like the room?"
Sam ignored him.
"It's probably better than that other one, right? Less icy, and stuff."
Silence.
"Did Tsuel tell you that this is the room that Elle and I grew up in?"
This . . . caused Sam to pause. She looked over her shoulder, watching Phantom's ethereal eyes as they traced unseen patterns along the masonry of her ceiling.
"She may have mentioned it," Sam responded, assuming nonchalance. She shrugged her shoulders. "Why?"
Phantom shook his head. He pointed high, towards the arched center of her ceiling. Sam's eyes followed the direction of his hand, and she frowned in confusion. Her room was stone, not ice, so it was lit with torches instead of an ice-spider. There was nothing that she could see where he was pointing.
"Sometime, if you're ever up to it," Phantom said, "warm the room with fire and then draw the fire skins. The absence of light may surprise you."
Sam snorted. "Yeah, sure. I'll get righton that." She glared at him again. "Now can I help you with something? I'm perfectly capable of building a fire without supervision."
Phantom held her gaze for a moment longer, before he sighed. "No, I'll go," he said, backing away from the entryway. "Goodnight, Sam."
Long after Phantom had left and Sam had sufficiently warmed the room with fire, she eyed the ceiling inquisitively. She was curious, like a cat to a closed door. As much as she wanted to ignore Phantom's suggestion, she found that the urge to know was quickly overcoming her petulance.
"Damn it," Sam muttered to herself. She lurched from where she had been sitting on her bed, reaching for the concealing curtain that was draped unused against the frame of her fireplace. "If this thing catches on fire and burns me, I will destroy him."
She wasn't too surprised when the skins remained intact. They were probably made out of a fire retardant material. No, what was surprising was the change that overcame her room once the last tendrils of light faded away and was overcome by sheer darkness.
They appeared, one by one, from her memory. There were thousands of them. Sam couldn't believe it. When was the last time she had seen them? When she was a child? Must've been, because that was before the once-blue sky of her human world had been completely overcome by the ectoplasmic infiltration. Seeing them now in such a way was surreal. Her jaw dropped as she spun, her eyes never once leaving the vast sea of stars above her.
There were constellations—the big dipper, the belt of Orion, Gemini, and more—along with the bigger, brighter spheres of light that must represent the solar system. It was amazing, and even though she knew that they weren't real, she couldn't help but recall the lazy nights she'd spent under the stars when she was little. The memories came flooding from some deep recess of her mind, and she fell to her knees, unable to shake away the reminiscent tears that stained her cheeks.
The nighttime sky of the human realm glimmered above her for the rest of the night.
A/N: This chapter. This f'ing chapter. I just. I don't . . . somebody, please shoot me. Haha. I really don't know what happened with this one. Things just . . . wrote themselves. Hello, new conversational subplot between Danny and Elle! Welcome!
In all seriousness though, I would like to remind each and every one of my readers that Epíphantos is my experimentation fic. Both it and its imminent sequel are my warm up/introductory fics to Fan Fiction. I have never written anything longer than a single chapter before, so pardon my obvious attempts at trying new things. Especially in regards to the formatting, things will not always be perfectly consistent like they might be in other stories. For that, I am sorry.
I hope you guys like this one. I had fun writing it. I don't see this story being longer than twenty-something chapters, so things will start to really pick up now. I don't want to drag this story on and make it unnecessarily dry, so there will be some significant passages of time from here on out until the end.
Also, one last thing, some of you has expressed your concerns about Danny's halfa status. I would like everyone reading this to keep in mind that while this is an AU, I am keeping the core of the show relatively canon. With that said, I would appreciate your patience. Things are as they are for a reason. With time, secrets will be revealed, and yada, yada, yada. You get the point.
Let me know what you guys think! Thank you so much for your continued support! I love you all. I respond to all my reviewers, so please, don't be afraid to drop a few words! I am anxious to know what everyone thinks so far. Next chapter shouldn't take so long. The RL has been killer.