Hi!
Okay, this one IS on time, and I love it sooooo much! I definitely see the endgame plot coming together flawlessly in my poor overcooked mind. Huzzah!
Okay, first a special shout to several people. Thank you livinglife for using my suggestion in your story 'Matchmaker Matchmaker'. I loved it! Next, Epona had a theory reguarding the source of the 'Spook' that while incorrect was very interesting and original. So I worked in a neat little disclaimer in this chapter. Also, your recommended 'ghost shrink' makes a house call, though you might regret suggeting it. Much love to Chaos Dragon for making this a fave among faves, or whatever you want to say. And SevenStar, I know you haven't reviewed stuff, but if you're still working on that comic (EEE! Someone's doing art based on my stuff! Yay!) then you deserve as much love and adoration as I can give.
Also, props to the PlayStation 3 for having the CREEPIEST COMMERCIAL EVER!
Right, and love to all reviewers great and small: The Only On3, Tornada Silverwind, BarnOwl93, acosta parez jose ramiro, TexasDreamer01, hermie-the-frog, Chaos Dragon, BratCat, Unrealistic, DP fan, FanFictionist, egyptianqueen777, bluename, Airgirl Phantom, The Fluff Ghost (I LOVE THE LENGTH OF YOUR LAST FEW REVIEWS!!), Queen S of Randomness, Epona Harper, Meagainsttheworld, and Diamond Raider. Thank you, all of you. Blessings upon ye.
To those of you who are new to the story, or feel a bit anti-review-ish, drop me a line please. :D I love reviews. Any and all reviews. No pressure, I just like to hear how things are going from as many viewpoints as possible. Thanks!
This chapter is for all of you who realize how kick-...butt Sam is and resent how little glory time she's had on the show.
Peace Out, Y'all!
HiddenAuthor
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Chapter 9 – Betrayals
Sam took a deep steadying breath, centered herself, and let the air out. Slowly, and with the grace of much practice, she diligently went through a long and comprehensive series of stretches. Working her arms around and jogging in place to warm up her tired muscles, the young Goth looked once more at the large room with satisfaction. Although she hated the arrogance, indifference, and hypocrisy that too often went with it, she had to admit that ridiculous wealth did have its advantages.
The entire floor was padded in thick mats, with gymnastic and exercise equipment all over the outer walls. Half of the center was a large open space for general practice, and the other half had been rigged for a…more intense workout. Her parents had been surprised when she asked for a small personal gym facility, but the renovations to the manor had only taken three weeks. And a little bonus from her allowance had given her some great 'extras' her parents didn't need to know about. Yes, being obscenely rich could be a good thing. If only she could get out of those political dates her parents planned to force on her. Scowling at their stupid money-driven schemes, Sam quickly pushed a button on a nearby remote and tossed it a safe distance away. 'Morbid Anti-Social Youth' began blaring from the full surround-sound speaker system up near the ceiling.
That did the trick. Between the death metal, her DP workout shirt, and thoughts of her parents, Sam had never been so pumped and willing to kill.
"Run!" She shouted. Immediately, ghost-shaped targets began randomly popping out of hidden slots in the walls, floor and ceiling. But Sam was ready for them.
A swinging bar flew out of a rising 'ghost' pillar, bent on tripping her up. Not missing a beat, Sam took a flying leap over the bar, turned into a sideways hand spring and spiraled upside down into a roundhouse, knocking the head off the top and coming to rest on the palms of her hands. Spotting her next victim, she bent her elbows and turned her fall into a summersault, rolling underneath a second spinning bar to deliver a swift one-two punch at the target, jumping at the last possible moment as the bar completed another spin without even looking back to see it. Another target appeared ahead of her, so Sam placed her palms on top of the pummeled pole and vaulted over it, doing a series of flips to carry her through the third danger zone, ripping the target off its supports barehanded. The three poles dropped, replaced with six robotic opponents forming a circle around her, which immediately began swinging several artificial arms and legs. Shifting from block to block in a series of fluid motions, Sam managed to deflect most of the blows and protect her critical areas, occasionally getting in a return hit. Fifteen minutes later, all six were retreating back into their storage compartments.
The three spinning targets were down, along with the group attack simulator. Now things got fun. From the ceiling dropped five individually programmed robot ghosts, swinging any number of fake appendages and soaring any which way throughout the room. Grinning, Sam watched as two green pillars rose from the ground and popped open, releasing two Fenton Anti-Creep sticks. After all, what fun were lasers?
With a vicious glare at the flying robot ghosts, Sam grabbed a bat in each hand and ran towards them swinging.
"Take that ghost! Nobody messes with Sam F-Manson!"
She fumbled for a moment, slightly red, then grinned and kept going. It was the bats that made her slip. Just the bats. And maybe the exercises she was performing. Wealth aside, the thing about this room she was proudest of was what she did in it. Everything about ghost fighting that wasn't always completely hers, she had learned from Mrs. Fenton for free, just because the older woman cared. Smiling, Sam raised the stupidly named bat and swung for all she was worth. One of the robots blew up.
"HA!"
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"HA!"
A dark shadow with vicious glowing eyes crashed into the side of large commercial building and sank to the ground, panting heavily. The dark figure glared up hatefully at the unusually serious and intense ghost boy.
"Had enough, Spectra?"
Another green blast shot out, missing the leaping lady ghost by inches. Quickly recovering, the demented shrink flew up behind Danny and gripped his shoulders tightly in her claw-like hands. Phantom immediately began struggling for his freedom, but she remained intractable and impossible to strike from her perch.
"No where near it!" She howled gleefully, her special powers settling over her victim in waves. "How could I? Your doubts, your fears, they're delicious! Still no idea what you are, no place among humans or ghosts, feared and hated by everyone! Look at you," she cooed, "it's no wonder Valerie hates you." Danny began faltering in midair, sinking beneath the onslaught of the misery the sick creature both created and fed upon.
"Shut up." He said through gritted teeth, shaking slightly as he thrashed in her grip.
"It's true, you know." She whispered softly in his ear, the slight clammy pressure of her breath sending goose bumps flowing all over the ghost boy's body. "She hates you. She thinks you're an evil ghost. Worse, a freak! Just like I always said." The dark woman chuckled darkly.
"Shut up." He repeated miserably, flailing weakly as he hovered, trying desperately to dislodge her. "That's not true. You're lying, trying to mess with my head. Get off me!"
"I am not." She responded frankly, digging her nails in deeper and clinging tight. "You know I'm not. You know just like I do that everyone is afraid of you. You're a scary, dangerous new creature. Not a human, not a ghost, nobody in the whole world who can understand or really accept you. Or love you." Danny's fiercely pinched eyes shot open, solid pupil-less green. Spectra's hands froze solid up to the elbows and shattered.
"Shut Up!" He screamed, reaching behind to grab the stunned spirit and fling her to the ground. Every window within twenty feet of impact shattered. But charged as she was from the 'feeding', Spectra was up and fighting in seconds. Both ghosts shot through the air firing ecto-beams at each other with all the force they could muster, spinning and dodging in an aerial dogfight that drew the gazes even of the fleeing pedestrians.
Dee-da-Dee-da-Deeee, da-Dee, daa-da-Deeee-Deeee!
Danny pulled up short in surprise at the eerily catchy ring tone coming from his waistband pouch. Taking advantage of the situation, Spectra launched him into the concrete. Wincing under the strain, Danny pulled out the phone as he shot back up into the air and pressed it between his right ear and shoulder, trying as best he could to compensate in his dogfight.
"What!" He demanded shortly. There was a long pause, during which Danny got hit twice, deflected five shots, and blasted Spectra in the center of her back, returning the concrete favor.
"…Hey, Danny."
"Tucker?" He asked incredulously, somehow finding it in him to be surprised despite his physical and mental beating. "I'm kinda busy right now." He said, blasting at the offending shrink. Property damage was shooting up by the second, but she was still far too strong to get caught in the thermos's traction field.
"Have you heard anything from Val yet?" Danny's eyes narrowed and the ghost boy exerted visible effort to stop himself from accidentally blowing up the phone.
"No." He said shortly. "Please stop calling to ask, Tuck. This is the fifth time today, and I'm fighting ghosts. We'll talk later, okay?!" Taking aim, Danny shot off another blast, but somehow managed a ball of green goop. It missed the equally nonplussed Spectra, and a second attempt at the strange attack failed. Shrugging mentally, Phantom returned to his usual tricks, scoring hits on the arms, face, and another to the back. She was definitely slowing down. If he could just hang up…
"Sorry dude, but she's not talking to me. I'm worried."
"Well try Sam's!" He shouted in exasperation as he was hit yet again because of the distracting phone call.
"I did. I even said sorry about what I said yesterday!"
"Try again!"
"Dude, you have some pretty dangerous and scary ghost powers, but when it comes to who I'm more afraid of, Sam wins hands down. I'll stick with calling you." A blast knocked Danny backward into a nearby building. He bounced off, crashed into the street, and was run over by a passing truck.
That did it! A brief flare of energy turned the phone to slag. Free of further interruptions, Danny finished off Spectra in a few seconds, first multiplying into three and then teleporting around her to do a joint ecto-blast. Breathing heavily, the ghost boy took a moment to shake off his enemy's 'help' and message the tread marks out of his back.
"Now where'd Bertrand run off to?" He asked aloud, looking up and down the street. "After that little chat, I really want to hit something."
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"Please don't hurt me!" A charged ecto-blaster lowered marginally. Intense eyes gazed through red lenses at the cowering ghost.
"I don't want to hurt you. Tell me what I want to know, and you can go free, ghost. Where is he?"
"I don't know! He doesn't usually make friends with ghosts." The gun began charging again.
"Hold it, Sweetcakes!"
Jazz froze mid-threat and turned disbelievingly towards the floating ghost. "Ember?"
"Could there be two ghosts this hot?" The singer made poet asked. "It's Jazz, right? The psycho sister."
"Psychologist" Jazz corrected absently.
"Not from where I'm standing." Ember shot back, gesturing towards the cowering ghost. "That ghost's a harmless assistant of Ghost Writer's. He can't even form a body in the human world. And here you are trying to redecorate his face." Jazz flushed slightly, and stowed the gun on her back holster.
"I wasn't going to hurt him, I swear! I'm just a little stressed." Ember quirked an eyebrow.
"I sure hope so." She answered. "Danny has you pegged as a pretty cool cucumber. Says the nicest things about how calm and together you are." Pride and shame warred in the older girl, but the end result for either was a full red blush. "Not that it's my business, but what brings you into the Ghost Zone? With weapons?"
"My brother." Jazz said shortly. Noting her distraction, the poor assistant ghost took off at top speed. "I want answers, and I want them right now. The Ghost Council's put a ban on half ghosts, Vlad's out and doing something, and Valerie's gone completely nuts!" The ghost girl grinned.
"Yeah, there seems to be a lot of that going around." She answered dryly. But Jazz wasn't paying attention. The girl's eyes were locked on something the other ghost had dropped.
"The 'Spook'?" She asked allowed, eyes widening. In half a second Ember was the giant gun's new target. "Ghost Writer is writing the 'Spook'? The paper that's made my brother a laughingstock and ruins his reputation on a daily basis?"
Ember burst out laughing. Taken aback, Jazz let the gun die again.
"Are you kidding? Ghost Writer doesn't write it. He reads it. His library has a copy of every good piece of fiction ever made, and the 'Spook' is gold! It's the funniest thing to hit the Ghost Zone since that 'Exorcist' movie!" The artist snorted. "Phantom, I am your father! Seriously, you don't think Ghost Writer could be a bit more original?" Grinning, Ember reached down and stuffed the paper in her pocket. "I'll get this to him later. In the meantime, is there anything I can do to help out? I don't really care about the ban thing, but Vlad's way creepy. Anything I can do to lock up that bozo is time well spent."
"I'm looking for Clockwork's place. Its right through Danny's lair, but it's not like I could go through there. So I'm kind of lost." Ember grinned.
"No problem," she said, "but could you lose the bazooka? It's kind of distracting." Blushing yet again, Jazz hastily stowed away the gun and followed the ghost girl, bobbing slightly on the unfamiliar new jet board. Still, it was a lot more convenient than the Specter Speeder, and Val had been more than willing to share her blueprints after discovering that Vlad was…well, evil.
"So," she said, after fifteen silent, boring minutes, "I know you and Danny have this thing going on, and I wanted to say…thanks." Ember shrugged.
"For what?" She called back. "Telling him the truth? He's a ghost, sister, even if he's still technically human, too. It's who he is. I didn't really shrink him or anything, I just told him to get over himself, and talked about what makes me feel better."
"Still, I want to understand." Jazz answered. "Could you help me?" A split second later, Ember was right in her face, hair flaming out around her head and teeth bared in a rabid snarl. A second after that, Jazz held a charged gun in her hands. Ember immediately calmed and turned away with a sad look.
"That's what you don't understand." She called back. "Would you have pulled a gun on a human for getting in your face? No." She answered. "You'd probably yell, but you wouldn't go that far. People are scared of ghosts. It comes with the territory. And until you've been feared and rejected just for being who and what you are, there's no way you can understand." The girl rolled her eyes. "Ghosts hate humans because they fear us before they try to know us, and humans fear ghosts because we hate them before we try to know them. It's dumb, but it is what it is. Danny's the only guy I've met that can relate to both sides of the problem. Doesn't help us help him though."
A large castle stood up ahead, giant gears turning slowly in the walls. Gulping slightly, Jazz left her guide to return to her 'lessons' and knocked on the door. A few moments later, Clockwork, master of Time, opened the door and favored her with a small smile.
"Jazz. Can I help you? I trust you know about my…situation." Jazz nodded sympathetically.
"It's kind of dumb, if you ask me. The Council letting Vlad go and at the same time threatening to punish you if he causes trouble. It's like they want you to lose out or something." Clockwork nodded tiredly as they sat down in his study.
"I assure you, the Ghost Council is not inclined to help Vlad. They are terribly afraid of half ghosts; there's no way they would do anything to help him."
"Or Danny." Jazz added bitterly. Clockwork nodded again.
"Or Danny. But may I ask why you are here?"
"Don't you know already?"
"No." Clockwork answered, sounding slightly surprised at the novelty. "Since I am prohibited in using my powers at the moment, I have very little idea as to why you are here."
"I want answers!" Jazz burst out. "Vlad has to be up to something, his freedom is on the line! And why is the 'Spook' paper making Danny look so bad? There's never anything good about him in that thing. And how could the Council do this? Do they hate Danny that much?"
"Ah." The time ghost answered simply. "While I don't know the future at all right now, I assure you Vlad is active. How, I do not know, but he will not sit idly by and allow me to recapture him in six month's time. What little I know from my viewings of the time stream before my punishment will not help in the slightest; there were far too many possibilities. I can only recommend you stay on your guard. I've known about the 'Spook' paper for some time, but my current situation prevents me from speaking at length about it. There were two possible sources behind that paper at my last check, and I could not say which it is. I can tell you that there is a very serious reason behind the negative publicity, but beyond that…"
He sighed. "You know, when I first gained my powers, I hated them." He confessed. "It's not easy to know so much, but to be sure of almost nothing. I have to play a god to my peers, but I'm no more certain of anything than you are, and my mistakes are often catastrophic. But if I recall, you've been studying this topic for some time now." Jazz nodded soberly. "After you finish your paper, I would very much enjoy reading it." The older girl didn't really know how to respond to that, so the two sat in silence for some time.
"You still haven't talked about the Council." She said awkwardly. Clockwork scowled slightly.
"Them." He said shortly. "They've been asking me to join them for millennia, but I only agreed about a century ago, when Vlad and Danny's existences became probable. The rest of them, lacking in foresight, would have immediately had them both destroyed. But they have so much potential! Even Vlad, for all his…flaws, has the potential to do great good for the world. But the others remain afraid." He sighed. "In truth, I think they used the Dan fiasco as an excuse to eject me for a while, so they could try and get rid of the two of them unopposed. Not all of them favor destruction, of course, but they all want the 'threat' removed. They know the current climate in the human world. It wouldn't take much. And as an added bonus, if they succeed, they can use that to justify my permanent expulsion from the council and prevent me from going back to fix things." Jazz stared for a moment.
"You really do care about Danny, don't you?"
"Very much." Clockwork admitted. "And in a very unique way. You know him as he is. I know what he is and what he might someday be. There's so much good he can do." The ghost's eyes cleared as he came back to reality. "But that's beside the point. I really can't help you more than that." Jazz nodded and moved to get up, but Clockwork quickly gripped her arm and pulled her close. The time ghost looked very nervous.
"Tell your mother to look at Lab Security Tape 1105041400. And you didn't hear that from me." Looking a bit confused, Jazz nodded and rushed out of the castle. Clockwork sat very still and listened for approaching councilors. Hours passed.
"Whew." He said, shaking slightly. "I can't believe I actually got away with that. Still, I suppose I didn't technically use my powers. I just broke all the other rules." Chuckling nervously, the time ghost floated through his lair, checking his clocks and watching Jazz and Danny on the time window. It was going to be a long week.
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Valerie rubbed her tired eyes and opened the door. Tucker was inside in half a second. He looked ready to yell, but once his eyes took in Val in her pajamas, he ground to a red-faced stuttering halt.
"What, Tucker?" She asked tiredly. Her boyfriend immediately regained some of his temper.
"What, Tucker?" He repeated incredulously. "You haven't talked to me for four days, or answered my calls, or done anything, and you ask 'what, Tucker'? Talk to me!" He shouted. Val's eyes widened slightly at the outburst. "I know you're confused, but you could talk!"
"You're his friend." She answered softly. "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable." Tucker frowned at that, and she pressed on. "I talked to my dad about it, though. He said some…interesting things. I've been thinking about it ever since."
"And?" Tucker prompted gently. Val shrugged.
"I don't know." She answered honestly. "I liked Danny. I think I still do. It's just really confusing. He's such a cool guy. The only reason I stopped dating him was because I wanted to protect him." The huntress laughed hollowly. Tucker grimaced.
"I…didn't really need to hear that." He mumbled.
"Oh, no, I like you too, Tucker!" Val hastened to add. "I'm just saying everything Danny and I have been through has been based on a secret. A lie."
"Well," he answered, "you didn't exactly tell him you were the red huntress, did you?"
"I know." She answered. "I thought of that already. It's not really fair to think like this, I just can't help it. And I've been so angry at ghosts for so long. I don't know if I can get past the fact that he is one. Or close enough to one, anyway. I know I should like him and accept him. I know that he's a good person. It's just hard for me to not hate him for being a ghost. That's what dad made me realize yesterday." She looked up, eyes hard and determined. "But I know something else too. I still care about him, no matter what he is, and there's no way I'm letting something stupid like what he is get in the way of that! I may not be able to like him now, but I trust him. And I'll keep working with him and spending time with him until I can like him again!"
Tucker took a moment to get that to register, then grinned.
"Danny's gonna love this." And somehow Val was smiling back.
"I'll bet." She said. "And…I think I need to see him alone first. I, said some stuff on Friday that I'm not proud of. I'd like to say…sorry, and stuff." She took a deep breath. "And I'm sorry for not talking to you and Sam. I needed time."
"It's cool, Val." Tucker said, smiling. "Let's go find Danny."
"Not yet." Val said grinning. "Want to grab a bit at the Nasty Burger first?" Tucker nodded. "Great. Let me just get out of my PJ's." Tucker immediately turned bright red.
Laughing at his embarrassment, Val walked briskly back to her room and locked the door loudly, so he wouldn't misunderstand, no matter how funny that was. Things were definitely changing for the better.
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In a newly constructed sound-proof basement beneath a nearly finished tower, a snippy little green ghost fumed from inside a phase-proof container.
"We'll ask you once again, ghost." Intoned Mr. Smith, negligently fingering a small switch. "Who is behind the 'Spook'? Is it your partner, Miss Spectra?"
Bertrand stuck out his tongue. Smith flipped the switch. Bertrand screamed.