I'm not gonna sugar coat it- I'm starting to lose interest in Danny Phantom. No, not starting, I nearly have completely. I am, however, now a raving X-Phile, so maybe that'll kick up the old spirit to finish this thing. Maybe. Hopefully.
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In the school parking lot, something akin to a mirage appeared, quick as a flash. After a moment, it became visible- the ghost from Scully's pictures in all his undead, glowing glory. He shook his hair about in the same manner as a wet dog would, bits of tar and dirt slipping falling like a cloud to the asphalt.
He growled as a bit fell in his eye, stinging slightly. He rubbed it agitatedly, hissing under his breath as it moved out from under the stubborn lid. The annoying bit of grit gone, he looked around the structure and trees, glaring at whatever he happened to be looking at as he inspected it. He grunted as his eyes closed, shaking his head and groaning.
"Nothing."
In complete disregard of his dead (and breathless) persona, a large gasp of mist came from his mouth, dissipating in the growing morning heat. He groaned under before he turned back to face the school, a disgruntled scowl on his face as he squinted into the bright sunlight, waiting for a cloud to soften the blast. He held his hand over his eyes, locking on to a ghoulish glow somewhere far off, behind the school.
His body became semi transparent again, like it did before hitting the plane and when he came out of the parking lot, and he darted next to the school, through trees and windowsills and anything else hanging from it. He disappeared as he passed windows, his invisibility hiding him from any scrutinizing eyes. He remained invisible all across the building, until reappearing on the other side of the school, as of yet undetected.
In front of him was the cause of the disturbance- an unnaturally large green eagle glowing like something out of a B grade horror movie, flying close to the ground and swiping at the empty air every now and again. He frowned as the huge eagle shredded apart a paper airplane that had flown through one of the school's windows. He flew around behind it, or at least, as best he could with it still circling like a buzzard. He threw his fist forward and shot a glowing green laser out of his knuckles at the eagle, causing it to shriek and be thrown back from its flight path.
Somewhere far below the battle, our two FBI agents had been driving when the sound of sizzling air and the awkward squawk of an injured animal drew their attention from the search for a certain 'Poe Avenue'. Scully gave her partner a deer-in-headlights look when she registered it wasn't the car'ds engine. He nodded slightly; he heard it too. "We may not have to look far for ghost activity after all" he said as he turned the car to the shoulder of the road, near the entrance to the High School.
The two were out of the car in a flash, looking for the source of the commotion. Finding it wasn't exactly hard, considering one was for the most part firing off explosions at the other. Mulder watched in silent awe of the two combatants, while Scully grimaced at seeing what looked like a corpse ready for the autopsy table flying around in mid air, almost like a normal, every day person. It was one thing to cut them up, but to see one moving around was not something she was used to, even with being around Mulder and working his kooky cases. It wasn't until a shot deflected by the eagle nearly beheaded them that they remembered that this was more than a fancy show.
"Don't let him out of your sight!" Mulder commanded as he grabbed his gun out of its holster and leveled it with Danny Phantom, Scully doing the same. He and Scully separated to watch the dog fight from opposite directions, and get him from whichever direction he went. They watched silently as the battle waged on, occasionally nodding or gesturing where the better cover would be.
The more humanoid ghost punched the eagle in the beak, causing the raptor to fall back with a pained squawk, glowing feathers flying from its badly singed wings. He flew up to intercept the bird mid arc, but was caught by a swipe of talons from the flying beast.
He yelped as the claws raked his limb, groping for where he was hit below his shoulder. Green blood flowed freely between his fingers and to the ground below, where it pooled in the crater formed from where one of his blasts missed it's mark.
He glared at the glowing avian before firing off a barrage of the glowing green blasts, assailing it and sending it crashing to the ground in a smoking mound of feathers. He reached behind his back and pulled out a silver and green cylinder, aiming it at the unconscious bird. He opened the top of the canister, and a dazzling blue and white light channeled outward, ensnaring the eagle. The bird gave out a squack as its body began changing shape, turning in a shape like pulled taffy, and disappeared into the device.
While this was happening, Mulder and Scully had been carefully positioning themselves to approach the specter from below, fervently trying to ignore the green goop on the ground, the goop that was all too familiar to them; and their nightmares.
After the eagle was channeled into the device, a gun shot rang through the air like a thunderclap, barely clipping the top of the ghost's hair and sending him head over heel through the air in a vain attempt to regain balance of the little mass he had.
The ghost looked on like a deer trapped in head lights at the ashy tip of his mop of hair. He floated still for several moments before turning toward the source of the blast-a red haired woman in a black trench coat, who was leveling the gun to once again be aimed at his head from behind a car.
He stared at her before yelling,"What, pray tell, was that about?! I didn't do anything to you, I was protecting the damn school from that eagle! Besides, you're plainly not the guys in white, or the Red Hunter, or the Fentons, so who are you, and why, exactly, ARE YOU SHOOTING AT ME?!"
His eyes caught those of the red headed figure, now accompanied by a tall brown haired man who was also in a black trench coat. Scully's face, at first, was one of shock upon hearing the infamous ghost speaking words to her, but soon her cool returned. She called back, "Stay where you are!"
The ghost peered at her patronizingly for a minute before retorting, "Why should I hang around someone shooting a gun at me? It doesn't really fit with my logic to stay within firing range of a couple of people trying to pump me full of lead. Not that it'd work, but still."
Mulder shook his head as he heard the ghost's comments, letting out a frustrated grunt as he sidestepped the stuff leaking out of Phantom's wound. It was getting harder and harder not to shudder as the disgusting substance dribbled off the 'ghost' . He turned back and joined in, yelling, "You have some explaining that needs to be done!"
The ghost grumbled, muttering, "I don't have time for this..." before once again becoming transparent and flying away, toward and above the school's roof. He made himself unable to be tracked by flying against the sun, where nothing could see him without blinding themselves.
Mulder and Scully lowered their guns, watching the figure disappear as best they could. They stared for a moment at the horizon before turning back to the crime scene. On the ground were several feathers and the green blood belonging to the ghost they were after, remnants of the battle.
"-and to think I hoped that would work for once." Mulder said, breaking the silence. His eyes scrunched and his shoulders tensed and fell in frustration, confusion and annoyance. So close, they'd gotten to damn close to finally catching one.
Scully dismissed her urge to agree, thinking of the specimens caked in green slime on the bacteria infested ground. She whipped out her cell phone and pressed her speed dial, saying into it, "Amity Police, this is Special Agent Dana Scully of the FBI. I have a crime scene I need fenced off in front of Casper High School. Bring evidence bags, stat."
She looked back toward the parking lot now adorned with glowing green bodily juices, slowly spreading across the concrete and dripping through the cracks, leaving a glowing trail wherever they touched.
XXX
Yellow tape was fencing off the scene. Scully was observing the evidence collecting while Mulder was telling the police a report of what happened. She took a small vile and, using a Q-tip, placed the feathers in a bag and a small amount of the ectoplasm in the vile, looking grimly at the skid mark covered concrete that was sure to have tampered with the samples. The joys of field work.
Mulder was looking rather perturbed while explaining to the police that a glowing eagle and Danny Phantom had attacked the school. They believed him, but were pestering for details he couldn't give, such as what direction the ghosts had come from and the like. Still, to their credit, they were treating it like any other crime, same questions- or maybe it was just desensitization.
Finally, they left him be to discuss plans of attack, leaving him to his own devices. He walked toward where Scully was kneeling on the ground, his dark frown equal to hers. He kneeled down to Scully's height, watching her open evidence bags and use tweezers to put them in.
"What do you think it is, Scully? As far as I know ghost's don't bleed. Walls bleed, floors bleed, hybrids bleed, but not ghosts." He asked, hoping she had a theory- because he sure didn't. At least, not until he let his memories start to take hold.
" ...Scully, what if he's a hybrid? I mean, look at it... Green blood, inhuman abilities, and more secretiveness than the lone gunmen put together. It all fits... But how could they really be back? We stopped them, after we escaped in the desert after my botched trial... Scully, you know as well as I do the steps we took." Mulder asked, eying the liquid.
Scully took a shaky breath before shrugging, shaking her head. "I don't know Mulder. I would first think a teenage prank, but there is no feasible way to make your blood green without doing you in. No human way, in any case. There was also no bulge where a flotation device could be hidden, either; he was really flying, Mulder." she murmured while moving some of the baggies containing various this and that into the bigger container.
"Unless either super heroes exist or there's a hybrid group we don't know about, there is no way for what that thing did to be possible. and I haven't seem superman around lately" she said as carefully positioning the evidence bags so as not to squish each other, and then standing to leave.
"I'm going to have these analyzed in the labs, we'll work from there. I'll check them out and compare them to other samples, see if there's any major differences to what we already have- including the blood of those infected with the black oil."
At the words, Mulder shook slightly, his imagination running away with him to old nightmares and frights. He shook himself free long enough to catch Scully's words,
"There is a small chance it has something like a genetic system, so we may be able to have some DNA tests run. Some samples from other ghosts have DNA similar to that the person had before death. We could get an identity... Hopefully. One about a quarter have it, but we can hope."
She took the samples and placed them in the backseat of her car. She gestured to Mulder, who rose and also took a seat and to leave with her to the hotel, where their laptops were waiting.
On the side lines of the school, the black haired boy, as well as a pale skinned, black haired girl and an African American boy were looking at the crime scene, flinching at the grizzly sight. They walked on before, once getting out of eye sight, running off and left, down a back street. However, the black haired boy slowed for a minute to rub his arm painfully, before catching up with the others.