AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry, sorry, sorry for it being so long since my last posts. If you check out my profile (recently updated) you'll notice I've been a bit busy. I want to thank everyone who's still reading my stuff and adding me to authors fav lists & story favs list. I like that kind of stuff.


As always, reviews are welcome. Things are going to get a lot lighter (for a while) in this story as I re-introduce everyone. I'd love to see if you can figure out who is whom in this story. And by the by, I missed most of the third season, DARNIT! I only knew it was happening when I saw the ads for "Phantom Planet" and by that time, it was too late. So, as far as I'm concerned, none of the third season happened (until I've seen it) and "Phantom Planet" definitely didn't happen in the past.

I hope you enjoy the second installment of Resurrection! And if anyone knows where I can get copies of Season 3, please let me know. I desperately want to see what I missed.

Years in the future, a half-ghost sleeps, wrapped in velvet darkness so deep even he does not know where it ends or begins. He dreams of fights and foes and love. A woman known and lost, a boy who understood the true meaning of life and a friendship held but briefly before hatred and jealousy broke it in half. Over and over, the memories run through his mind and as he watches, he begins to see all the mistakes he made and all the things he could have done to improve his life.

Sometimes he cries in his sleep. Sometimes he laughs. For the longest time, though, he simply dreams of better tomorrows and wasted yesterdays.

The seasons come and the seasons go during this long dreaming. Though it is dark, though he sleeps, he always feels the unbridled joy of summer, the soft goodbyes of autumn, the sharp bitter winds of winter and the awakening murmurs of spring.

And then, one day, it happens.

It is the first day of spring. He can smell fresh-cut grass and growing flowers. His soul reverberates with the sound of a voice, at once gentle, wise and implacable.

Time to wake, My Darling. Once again Phantom walks the world and Shimmer knows.

Shimmer. The word sends his sleeping self into a panic and Vlad Masters wakes with a start.

"Shimmer," he gasps. "Goddess, I beg you protect the lad until I get there."

He feels her smile, warm and comforting. He is safe for now, Dearest. I promise. Now here is what I require from you.

A sharp buzzing in his ear woke him, though he did his best to convince himself that he really wasn't awake. He pulled his pillow over his head in an attempt to block out the sound. It didn't work. The buzz sounded off again and, with a groan, he realized he had forgotten to take his i-bug out of his ear before he tumbled into bed the night before.

The noise of his groan activated the tiny cell phone, picking up the call before he could pluck the thing out and put it on his nightstand.

"Dude!" shouted the teen male voice at the other end. "It's about time you answered. I was beginning to think you were going to be comatose through the whole weekend."

"Huh? What?"

A snicker came from the caller. "DeFranco, are you even awake yet?"

"No! Now leave me alone."

Laughter erupted. "Don, get your butt out of bed. The rally is today, remember? Me, you, lots of guts-n-glory from idiots doing stupid stunts with souped-up hover boards and jet sled races. Front row tickets, right next to the babes in bikinis?"

Now that was something Donny DeFranco was willing to wake up to. The raven-haired, blue-eyed fifteen year old launched himself out of bed, grabbing for the cleanest clothes he could find. Preferably something that didn't smell like it had marinated in a junkyard. "Ack! Sorry, Denver. I completely forgot. What time is it?"

"Eight thirty. Show doesn't start till ten. You've got time. See you at the entrance in a bit?"

"Give me one hour. I've gotta grab some blooms for my girl."

Denver laughed again. "Dude, you are so owned."

Donny shook his head, even though his best friend couldn't see it, while shucking his pajamas and pulling on clean pants. "I am not. She's just incredibly good to me. Besides, she's going to be at the rally too, remember."

"And she'll never forgive you if you don't do something sickeningly sweet, right, Donny-Boy?"

"Bye, Denver," Donny warned right before he tapped the i-bug off. He knew better than to let Denver sound off about his girlfriend for too long. The two long-time buddies had a tendency to come perilously close to fighting when Denver started his "teasing".

It only took him a few moments to finish changing, brush his teeth and run a wet hand through his hair. Once done, he glanced around his bedroom for anything he might have forgotten. Shelves lined the far wall, littered with sports trophies, movie vids, music sticks and three e book readers. The bed was shoved sideways against one wall with a nightstand near the head and a computer desk standing at the foot. The remaining two walls were plastered with three dimensional posters. Heaps of clothing lay upon the floor. All in all, it was a typical teenager's room.

Grabbing his wallet and letter jacket, Donny pounded downstairs looking for breakfast only to get glared at by a pair of eyes hiding behind a newspaper.

"Will you quit stomping on the stairs like that? One of these days your going to fall right through." John DeFranco was a short, wizened man who didn't abide nonsense. He was a strict disciplinarian who expected everything in his life to be orderly. Chaos was unacceptable, which was probably why John DeFranco wasn't married.

"Sure, Dad," Donny muttered absently around bites of blueberry muffin. He shoveled the food in his mouth, commenting. "Mmm gng phoo da raly."

"Don't talk with your mouth full! Didn't I teach you better manners than that?"

Donny half-choked as he hastily swallowed. "I'm going to the rally," he repeated once his windpipe was clear.

His father snorted in disgust. "Is that girl going to be there?"

"Dad!"

John carefully folded the newspaper and put it on the table. "Donny, I don't like that girl. She's manipulating you."

Donny sighed. He loved his father, he really did. And he knew John loved him. Still, it was hard to remember the fact every time John found something to complain about. "Dad, you're a plumber and I'm just a high school student. She's practically a celebrity. She could have any guy she wants at any time. Besides, she's rich. Why would she possibly want to use me for that she can't get any place else?"

"Does she do drugs?"

"Dad! I can't believe you're suggesting that! My girlfriend is not a candy-head."

"What about her friends? I know how these famous rich kids work. They're all about the drugs, drinking and partying."

"I admit her friends are kind of strange, but it's not about drugs and I've never seen any of them drink."

"What about parties?"

"Dad!"

John DeFranco sighed heavily, then leaned over and ruffled his son's hair. "Just be careful, Son. I worry about you."

"I know, Dad. I know."

"Enjoy your rally. Curfew is at ten."

Donny bolted to his feet, checking his wallet for his cred-card. "Want me to get you anything while I'm out?"

"No thanks, Son. I'm just going to spend a quiet relaxing day at home reading about the latest in pipe design."

"Riiiiigggghhhhttt."

Compared to the old days, Amity Park was a crowded metropolis of skyscrapers, bullet trains and suburban sprawl. In the center of the tangle lay old town Amity, a wreck of a town crushed nearly two centuries ago in a violent invasion.

The army of ghosts responsible for Amity Park's destruction rivaled every single standing army on the planet Earth, yet in the end could not stand up to the combined might of the United Nations and every single living ghost hunter on the planet. The battle was bloody, at least for the mortals, but after five long years, the town was freed from its ghostly conquerers and hadn't seen a ghost since.

Not that Donny DeFranco knew or cared.

He rode his hover-scooter through the streets of old-town, ignoring the heavily fenced-in campus of Spectre Detectors HQ, an old decrepit building with old fashioned satellite dishes on top—the broken sign stating ".en.on..ork."—, and the original city hall building now converted into a museum celebrating Amity Park history.

The closer he got to the fairgrounds, where the rally was being held, the busier the streets were. Parking spots were impossible to find the closer one got to the grounds. Donny didn't worry about it though. When he reached the rally, he pulled a bright orange pass out of his pocket and flashed it at the guards.

"I'm with the band," he yelled.

One of the guards waved him through. Donny parked near the performers' trailers, grabbing a wrapped bundle from his basket and ran towards the front gate. He found Denver and Kasey, his two best buddies, leering at the girls waiting in line.

Denver was a tall, muscular teenager with blond hair and blue eyes. The perfect quarterback with the perfect tan. Kasey was just a bit shorter than Denver, with an Asian complexion and the same build. The two could have been twins, personality wise that is. They wore the same types of clothing, ate the same types of food and told the same types of jokes.

And they both like to pick on the geeks and nerds, Donny thought to himself as Kasey grabbed a wrist-computer off someone in line and tossed it to Denver. The two football jocks played keep away from the angry African-American techno-geek wearing a red beret. Donny searched his memory for the geek's name as he approached.

"Leave him alone!" yelled a nice looking girl in a torn black fishnet body stocking covered with a short black skirt and three layered tank-tops of green, purple and black. She flipped black bangs out of her eyes as she pushed her way in front of Denver, her bangle bracelets and skull shaped earrings jangling definitely. "Tuck hasn't done anything to you! Give his comp back!"

Wow. She's almost hot. Donny remembered the geek now. Friar Tuck, they called him, due to his unrelenting preaching of the gospel of technology. The girl, if he recalled correctly, was named Sammarra but insisted on being called Mara. Most of the popular girls considered her weird, a freak. That's all Donny knew about the pair, though. He never had a reason to talk to them, let alone interact with them. Not until now.

Denver tossed the comp back to Kasey, laughing hysterically as Tuck stepped forward only to slip and fall into a mud puddle.

"Stop it!" Mara yelled, running at Kasey.

"Lookit, Den," Kasey mocked as he tossed the comp back. "The punk girl thinks she can hurt me."

Donny went into an instant sprint, jumping in the air and snagging the tiny computer with his free hand before Denver could catch it. Behind him, Mara screamed in fury at Kasey's comment.

"I'm a GOTH, you brainless Neanderthal! A goth! Not a punk."

"Go long, Dude," Denver cheered simultaneously, backing up so Donny could throw the comp in his direction.

Something moved in Donny's peripheral vision. He turned to see a muddy Tuck standing up and glaring. Mara left Kasey's side, her hands balled into fists as she added her own glare. The geek and the freak were determined, ready to defend each other no matter the cost.

Donny swallowed as something familiar stirred inside him. He recognized the fire in their eyes. Denver and Kasey both yelled encouragement at him to join the game, but he couldn't find it in his heart to do so. Up until this point in his life, he managed to avoid getting pulled into his friends bully tactics. He always hated those games so made sure to be somewhere else when the other kids of his circle decided to play them. That way, he wouldn't be drawn into doing something he hated and his friends would never know he was a geek-sympathizer at heart.

Now, though, he had just put himself in the middle of the game. He had a choice. Continue playing at the expense of someone else's dignity and his own morality, or let his friends know exactly where he stood, risking his social standing and everything he had ever wanted from his life.

No choice at all, really. His moral principals always had a habit of getting him into trouble.

Silently, he held the wrist-comp out towards Friar Tuck, who hesitated to take it, frowning in confusion. Mara hissed in aggravation, snatching the device from Donny's open hand as if she fully expected him to pull his hand back at the last moment. Her snarl turned to surprise when Donny did nothing of the sort.

"Hey!" Denver yelped. "Don, what are you doing?"

"Yeah," Tuck added. "What are you trying to pull?"

"Nothing," Donny responded quietly. "I just don't like the joke."

Mara glared at him suspiciously again. "Aren't you one of the brainless jock crew?"

Donny glared back. "Playing football makes me a jock, but it doesn't mean I'm witless."

She smirked. "Only because you haven't taken as many blows to the head as your two friends there."

Kasey stalked up, anger in his features. "Watch it, Freak. That's my friend you're dissing."

"What are you going to do about it? Hit me? Go ahead!"

Denver picked up a stick from the ground, thwapping it against his palm threateningly. He opened his mouth only to shut it again when Donny raised his hand.

"Cool it, Guys," he said as calmly as he could, trying to hold back his own temper. "Mara and Tuck have a right to be mad. You started this fight, after all."

The freak and geek started in surprise. "How do you know our names, DeFranco?" Tuck demanded.

"Does it matter?" Donny replied, the slightly bitter edge to his voice betraying the hurt he felt from Mara's and Tuck's attitudes. "After all, I'm just a brainless jock, right?"

He turned to his two friends, shaking his bundled blooms. "Come on, Guys. My girlfriend is waiting."

Mara looked at her best friend Tuck, who was busy scratching his head. The encounter with DeFranco had shaken her to the core. His eyes were gorgeous, the color of deep blue ocean. She hadn't noticed that before. Of course, she had never really looked at him before. She avoided popular kids like they had the plague.

"Uh, Mara, what just happened?"

"One of the most popular kids in school just defended you, Tuck."

Tuck shook his head, wiping the mud off the front of his shirt. "No way. I was just imagining that."

"Yes way."

"Oh my god! It's the end of the world as we know it!"

"Yeah," Mara sighed in regret. She had never wanted to talk to a boy so badly in her life. Which meant she was crushing on a jock. Of all the people in the world she could fall for, a football jerk was not on her list. And DeFranco had the nerve to be a nice football jerk. "End of the world. That's pretty much what I figured."

The three teenage boys got through the front gate early, while the rest of the crowd was still waiting for the rally to start. Danny flashed his orange pass again, then him, Kasey and Denver handed over their tickets. Once they were in, they headed straight for the stage area, though Kasey and Denver kept stopping at booths to drool over the latest in jet sleds and sled accessories.

"Guys, come on. She's waiting for me," Donny complained.

"Dude, you are so owned," Denver quipped again.

"Yeah," Kasey joined in. "She's got you whipped like a dog."

Donny merely gritted his teeth and kept walking. There were days when he wondered why he hung around with these two.

In the "popular click" at school, when push came to shove, it was every kid for himself unless the whole group was at risk. At which point, all of them would defend each other. Even when surrounded by flirtatious girls and fellow jocks, Donny felt empty, lonely and afraid. He jumped at shadows for no reason at all, save the strange sensation that he was being watched. He was smarter than most of his friends and had to deliberately fail tests or forget homework assignments so he wouldn't be verbally abused even more by the kids he hung around. When he went home for the day, it was just him and his father; no siblings, no mother. And Donny was lucky if his father wasn't out on a call or busy building some new contraption to install in someone's house.

Every day became more silent than the day before. Donny found himself keeping secrets from his so-called best friends because he didn't want to be laughed at or ignored at school. The secrets weren't anything big. Just little things like what movies he really liked or comic books he read. As he got older, though, the number of things Denver and Kasey disapproved of became as long of a list as the mental list John DeFranco kept. In a room full of people, Donny DeFranco was completely alone even though other not-so-popular kids laughed at his horrid jokes or tried to curry favor by offering to his homework.

He found himself thinking about Friar Tuck and Mara. Two of the loneliest kids in school. Or so one would think. But he remembered seeing them share jokes, hanging out in the hallways, helping each other with homework. They seemed close, as if they were real friends with each other. He envied that. Not having to live up to other people's expectations, not having to be judged by how one dressed or the music one listened to. Those two knew how to stick up for each other and themselves. They were free to express their own opinions without consequence.

And Mara really did look hot in that body stocking.

Stop it, DeFranco. You already have a girlfriend.

Kasey and Denver stopped to drool over a new hover board, the Plasmius Mark 6000. It was a sweet little ride, all cobalt blue with fire-orange racing stripes. Donny stopped to watch them, standing a foot away. They talked about what they would do with it while he stood outside the bubble, like he always did, wishing desperately he didn't feel so much like an outsider. Suddenly, Donny shivered, his breath hanging in the air as if the temperature had dropped several degrees. This was his only warning. He knew what was coming next. After all, the breath thing never happened unless he was near Her.

Arms wrapped around his chest from behind. "Hello, Lover," a warm voice purred in his ear.

She pressed up against his back like a cat. Donny shivered again, this time with a sensation of fire in his belly. She was the only person in his life that he could trust, the only one he could be completely honest with. Around her, he felt like he could do anything, be anyone, and not be judged.

Denver was right, though Donny would never admit it out loud. She really did have Donny twisted around her pinky finger. All she had to do was ask and he would give her the world.

Donny held up his package towards the shoulder she was leaning over. He tried to open his mouth, but found his mouth too dry to speak. She had a habit of doing that to him.

She freed one hand, taking the flowers. "Oh, blue irises. My favorite! Thank you." She planted a heavy kiss on his neck.

"Anytime." Donny twisted around to face his girlfriend, grinning like an idiot. "Hello, Ember."

The rock star with light blue flame-like hair and her blue-tinted skin (presumably it was her stage makeup, though he had never seen her without the strange coloring) smiled broadly as she pressed herself up against his chest. "God, I love it when you say my name. Say it again."

Donny laughed and obliged. "Ember, Ember, Ember."

Ember slipped her hand behind his neck, pulling him closer and kissed him deeply on the lips. When she finally released him, she glanced at the flowers then looked coyly back at him. "Oh, yes," she muttered half to herself, "this is definitely working."

Confused, Donny opened his mouth to ask his famous, celebrity girlfriend what she meant, but before he could voice the words Ember silenced him with another kiss.