A/N: sry it's been so long people. one of my best friends got home from her vacation around Europe (we had loads to catch up on), i've been getting ready for school (starts on the fourth for me), and i got caught up in a harry potter story i was reading. plus, with school starting and everything, i won't have the chance to type a chapter all day. so updates are going to be a bit spaced out from now on. sorry.

thanks for ur reviews guys! and to Amber-Phantom - sorry, what you were talking about isn't going to happen anytime soon. Probably the next summer (not talking about reality, in the story), as there are some things I have to have happen beforehand. don't forget to review!

Chapter 7 - Deja Vu with a Twist

Lea immediately cuffed Brian on the head.

"Ow! What was that for?" he asked, as they lounged around the mall.

"I told you to call us if anything happened!" Lea told him, and he smiled sheepishly.

"Nothing much really happened." Brian tried to get out of it.

"Dude, all the kids in the town were kidnapped, you fought an insane clown, your Aunt found out about your secret, AND Jaimie acted mature! I think that counts for something!" Leo exclaimed, taking a bite out of his Rolo ice cream.

It was the day after his vacation, and the mall was one of the best air-conditioned buildings in Amity. So, naturally, the vast majority of the teenage population was here, and ice cream parlours all over were making a killing.

Brian was about to respond, but his ghost sense went off. The others sighed with him, and Brian ducked under the table. The large ghost soon scared off any possible witnesses, so Brian transformed, as did Lea, and they emerged to see their target.

He had pale blue skin, and flaming green hair. The ghost was wearing high-tech armour by the looks of it, and had a very broad chest. His head almost resembled a triangle in the way it got smaller after leaving it's neck. He appeared to be looking for something.

"What do you say we take him by surprise?" Lea whispered, sending shivers down his spine, which he associated with his ghost sense. He nodded and held up three fingers for the countdown.

Three...

Two...

Crash!

"You can't hide from me, Ghost Boy! For I am Skulker, the Ghost Zone's Greatest Ghost Hunter! Collector of All Unique and Rare! You'll spend the rest of your life in a cage, for all to view and admire!" the ghost bellowed from above them, where he had thrown the table away.

"Do all ghosts make strange and really long titles for themselves?" Brian asked Lea dryly, and she simply shrugged.

Skulker then withdrew a miniature cage, which appeared to have many ghosts struggling to be free. Skulker made to put Brian in the cage, but he flew up to dodge, while Lea jumped on her hover board to join him. The ghost raised an eyebrow at this.

"Oh, so the Ghost Boy has a little girlfriend too? So much like-" but he was cut off at Brian and Lea's furious shouts of denial.

Skulker threw an ectoblast at him, and Brian dodged. The boy was plainly expecting something easy, due to all the simplistic animal ghosts that seemed to crowd around Amity. Fool.

The girl actually got a shot on him - but she was soon disposed of. She had no value, and was just an annoyance.

Brian's eyes widened as he saw Lea get thrown into a nearby store's neon sign. It sparked, flickered and went out, while Lea fell into a display of little knick-knacks, most of which were unfortunately sharp. She didn't get up.

When he saw Leo rushing to her, Brian turned back to Skulker, who was coming at him quick. Moving out of the way at the last minute, Brian grabbed him and used his momentum against him. Skulker found himself being thrown into the cutlery shop, but simply went intangible and came back up. He threw an ectoblast which got Brian in the gut, leaving behind a burning sensation.

The next thing he knew he was trying to defend himself against Skulker's ecto-punches, but his shields shattered after only a few. Brian was just trying to hold out until his healing powers took effect and this stupid burn went away.

But for some reason, they didn't work. Brian found himself thrown into their table at the food court, but luckily their bags cushioned his fall...somewhat. Brian knew why as Leo's bag spilt open, revealing several pointy techno-things. Very pointy techno-things.

"Man, Brian, are you alright?" Leo asked him, crouching down beside his friend.

"Gee, let me think...no! Lea's hurt, I'm hurt, my healing powers aren't working, and I got a crazy, really powerful ghost on my hands!" Brian groaned as he got up from the wreckage that was once their table. Skulker landed several meters away and started walking towards them victoriously.

"You don't have to fight me, you know. You could just come quietl-eyyyyyyyyy!" Skulker slipped on Leo's dropped ice cream, and fell face first into the table wreckage.

Something caught his eye. It was one of those human communication devices, but it seemed to be upgraded, more advanced. Just as he picked it up and was about to add it to his armour, thinking that you can never have too many upgrades, a flash of deja vu made him hesitate. But only for a second. It soon left, and he added the phone to his armour.

Immediately text messages flashed across his visor.

"From: Super Techno-Geek Magazines ltd. Visit our Website! From: The Phys-Ed Hater's Club. Down with Physical Activity! From: Harold Smith. Dude, any updates? I have ten bucks to spend. What is this? It's taking up so much memory...stupid human technology! It won't come off!" Skulker was now frantically pulling at the cell phone, but ran away in a frenzy as Brian and Leo watched, stunned.

"He took my cell phone!" Leo whined.

"Which is perfect!" Brian declared, and then explained when Leo just stared at him, "You said that your cell phone can be controlled by your laptop, right? And it has a connection to the Internet?"

Leo realised what he was saying. "And there are a lot of pages on the Internet that have viruses, or pages that take a long time to load! Let's get to my house first though - mom's at work, and Lea could use some bandages."

Brian flew over to where Lea lay. Leo had gotten her out of the sharp items, but she had several small cuts across her face, and a burn on her shoulder from where Skulker's ecto blast hit her. Seeing it made Brian remember his own injury, which was only just starting to heal now. But it as taking much longer than normal.

He and Leo arranged so that Brian would carry Lea home, and he would meet them there. The trio-temporarily-made-duo could hear voices and the sounds of TV crews outside the mall, so Brian scooped Lea up in his arms (bridal style, of course) and flew through the roof while Leo sneaked out the back way.

Unfortunately, Brian forgot to make them invisible. Cameras flashed and reporters started shouting so many questions it was impossible to make out a single one. Not that Brian was even trying, though. He just turned them invisible, much to the dismay of the reporters, and flew off in the direction of Lea's house.

Mid-flight, Lea started to stir. Brian looked down to see her tiredly open her eyes and yawn. But she froze mid-yawn, after seeing her position. Of course, in her mind it was the fact she was in Brian's arms, but Brian thought it was because she was currently about a kilometer high in the air.

"Well look who's up...it's miss Since-I-got-thrown-into-a-sign-I-get-to-take-a-nice-little-nap." Brian smiled to let her know he was just joking. She scowled and lightly smacked him on the shoulder.

"Hey, watch it, I wouldn't want to drop you would I?" Brian teased.

"You wouldn't dare!" she yelped and wrapped her right arm around his neck so that she could hang on even if he decided to play some more.

"All right! I surrender!" Brian couldn't understand why he was happy to be in this position with Lea. She was hurt, why would he be happy?

"Good. Now, what happened with Skulker?"

Brian explained what had transpired at the mall, while they landed in Lea's house and waited on Leo. He was on foot, after all. He came in just as Brian was about to ask about Lea's (who was laying on the couch) shoulder when Leo beat him to it. He was already hovering over her.

"I'm telling you Leo, I'm fine. Why is that so hard for you to believe?" Lea said exasperatedly.

"I'm just worried about you sis. Listen, I'll go get us a snack, and stop hovering for five minutes. And I know that's what you were thinking!" Leo teased, and went off to the kitchen. The moment he left, Brian turned to Lea.

"Why'd you lie to him?" he asked her, quite bluntly. After all, he was the master of understatements.

Lea looked stunned for a moment, but then realisation dawned in her eyes. He got hit by ectoblasts on a daily basis, and knew that they're burns were no walk in the park. Luckily he didn't have to endure it for long, because his healing powers take effect. But she had no such luck.

"He worries about me enough as it is. Why give him more to worry about? If he knew I wasn't fine, I have no doubt that he'd personally make sure I was on bed rest until the burn was gone. Leo...it's nice that he cares enough about me to do it, but there is such a thing as taking it too far. That's one thing Leo doesn't seem to understand." Lea explained, a pleading quality in her eyes.

Before Brian could respond, Leo shouted out from the kitchen, "Guys, turn on the news right now! This is hilarious!"

Shrugging, Brian picked up the remote and turned on the large screen TV. Immediately the news anchor and a picture on the top right hand side appeared on the screen. The picture was of Brian leaving the mall with Lea in his arms.

"...girls of Amity Park will be disappointed. PhasoBill was, after all, voted by Teen Ghost Magazine as the most good-looking ghost to be in Amity Park for nine years. (Leo [who had come back in laughed uproariously as Brian's face, already a deep crimson, got even darker) But it would seem that he's already taken ladies! The Yellow Huntress, pictured here, was injured during a fight today, seems to be under the personal care of PhasoBill himself! (Lea turned an eerily similar shade of red to Brian) This just seems to prove that, since the Yellow Huntress herself is good, that PhasoBill is also not-evil. We'll have more on this situation as it continues."

Soon after that, Brian left because he didn't want his grandparents to get suspicious. Leo started making a program for Skulker, a.k.a. his cell phone. He instructed it to go to several web pages known to hold viruses, and one page that would take him approximately 30 seconds to load. He could send it at any time, giving them the advantage.

The next day, the three friends met up in the park, hoping to attract Skulker so they could get rid of him. They weren't disappointed. The bulky ghost flew up to them, starting off his assault immediately with a wide spread ecto-blast. Expecting it, Leo crouched behind a tree with his laptop, while the other two changed (by now, once again, everyone had run out of the park screaming. Convenient, isn't it?) and flew out of it's reach.

The battle began, but not without a healthy amount of steadily-improving-witty-banter from Brian. At one point during the battle, Skulker halted for a second, then sneezed. Unfortunately, Brian and Lea were too busy stifling giggles and laughs to take advantage of the situation. Their adversary quickly recovered, and shot at them again.

It continued in this way for quite a while, until Lea finally succeeded in capturing him. It went like this: Brian kept Skulker distracted, while Lea searched for a Pen. Just as she looked up, their ghostly grievance was about to land a hard blow to Brian, when he froze. Then, his armour crashed (at least, that's what Leo told them), and a tiny green blob flew out of it. Lea had no trouble incarcerating it inside the Pen. Of course, that wasn't without Brian shouting something about 'See how you like it!'.

Anyway, the sun was setting as the three walked back home. Leo was still pouting - and after they had spent the rest of the day at the ice cream parlour!

"Come on Leo, you can get another! It's not the end of the world!" Lea flung her arms open wide to symbolize as she walked backward, facing her brother.

"But it won't be the same." Leo mumbled, arms crossed.

"Exactly. Why don't you take it as a challenge to make an even better cell phone? Maybe it could double as a stereo or something." Brian tried to cheer his best friend up. After all, they had been friends since birth, practically. Their parents would always be together, you see. Therefore, they were always together.

Leo seemed to be cheered up marginally. Of course, according to Lea (though she said it in her own goofy way), who contacted Brian the next day, he had felt much better after tinkering with some new thing in his room for a bit. Brian was at home now, and the last thought before he went to sleep-

I've got the best friends in both the worlds.