Chapter VIII: Captured

Sam looked out the window of the Spector Speeder, which has since been rebuilt and redesigned since the last one was destroyed during the events of "The Phantom Planet" to carry more people for long periods of time, plus more weapons. She looked over the tall trees and the rushing water, she was trying to enjoy the rare sight of untouched nature; however she was too worried about Danny to enjoy it.

She looked around, Jack and Maddie were sitting upfront, Jack was piloting while Maddie was reading the navigation screen. Tucker was sitting opposite of her, fiddling with his PDA and other things, Jazz had decided to stay behind to look after Danielle who couldn't come on the mission, Sam was still getting used to Danielle being around since The Fentons adopted her, due to the fact she shared their DNA and they felt sorry for her, especially with Vlad being involved with her creation.

"Are we there yet?" asked Sam.

"Wow I can't believe you went an hour without asking that" said Tucker.

"Actually I think we're here" said Maddie.

They all looked out the front window to see the giant ghost shield dome. Jack started to steer the speeder to the ground near it, much to Sam and Tucker's confusion. Why were they landing, they didn't have time to walk through the jungles, plus it was almost night and it was dangerous.

"Wait why are we landing, we can cover more ground in the speeder?" said Sam.

"We can't bring the speeder in, remember Skulker said that if a ghost touches it, the whole thing would become unstable and detonate; a ghost is made of Ectoplasm, this thing partly runs on it, plus it uses it for its weapons, sadly that includes our weapons as well" said Maddie.

"Then how are we supposed to find Danny?" asked Tucker.

"Well the main thing is to get Danny out, we can walk in and out of the shield as much as we want, we just need to get Danny to us, plus we have other things that don't require Ectoplasm to run"

"What?"

"Well we have some of our oldest weapons; this was before we discovered a ghost can only be hurt by a concentrated amount of Ectoplasm, so they have no trace of the substance"

"Ok well how are we going to have Danny find us?"

"Well we have a couple of flares" said Jack.

"We can't use flares, if Danny can see them, so could Skulker, we would just be bringing the two together" said Sam.

"Yes but then Danny will know where we are, all we have to do is get him out"

"Yeah and Sam, stop worrying, look the shield is still up, that means Danny is still alive" said Tucker.

"Yeah…but I'll still feel a lot better when he's here" said Sam.

"Me too, common Jack' let's go get our son" said Maddie getting out of her chair.

Minutes later, the four of them were walking through the jungles of the Amazon, keeping their eyes peeled for danger and Danny. When they were about a half a mile into the jungles, Maddie pulled out the flare gun and shot it up into the air. Praying that her son would see it and quickly come to them, and hoping that he was okay.

Skulker was walking through the flat land, arm raised and spraying the area with his flame thrower, exterminating the vile insects that were trying to devour him. He had picked up Danny's trail and was pleased to see that it was leading him out of the area, which meant his kill was not stolen by the vile beings beneath him. Suddenly he heard a strange sound in the air; he looked up to see a red light fly into the sky. Skulker, recognizing the thing as a flare, instantly knew that the whelps' allies had come for him. How dare they, how dare they interfere with his hunt, he could kill them for this, and probably would after he killed Phantom. Skulker immediately headed towards the location of the flare, hoping his prey would be stupid enough to investigate it.

Sam and the others looked around, it had been five minutes since the flare was fired, Danny should have been her by now, that's if he saw it. Sam began to worry again, however she knew her boyfriend was still alive, the shield was still up.

"No luck, I think we have to go deeper, he probably didn't see It." said Tucker.

"We can't go too far from the Speeder; we might need a quick escape." said Sam.

"Well maybe one of us should-"Jack Maddie started to say before being cut off.

Everyone turned to her, she grabbed her neck which now had a small wooden dart in it, and Jack started to run over before being hit with one as well. Sam looked over just in time to see Tucker receive one, and Sam panicked when she felt a sharp pain in her neck. Sam felt like her head was light, and her eyelids became heavy, she was being drugged, Sam felt herself fall to the ground and started to drift off, but not before seeing shadowy figure stand over her.

Skulker watched from shadows as figures started to pick them up one by one, they soon left, taking Team Phantom with them. Skulker, interested walked into the area, invisible, and grinning. So, the whelp's allies came to his rescue, if Danny saw that flare, or finds out there here, he will come to investigate, and he will be here waiting for him. Skulker laughed and started to ponder what to do, just wait here, or maybe build some traps for the whelp and his allies.

Skulker grinned as he imagined the end of the day, he imagined himself standing atop Phantom's bloody corpse, holding his skull and spine in his hands, while his friends and family looked on in horror and sadness. Then he would use Phantom's father for target practice, and use the left overs as bait for his future hunts. The others were disposable; he would gut the geeky one and feed his innards and remains to the beasts of this jungle. The mother he would torture by showing her the corpse of her son, then, depending on his mood at the time, will either shoot her in the head or stab her in the heart.

Then the whelps female friend, the one he cares most about, he will cut out the whelps heart and throw it at her, she always wanted his heart, know she can have it, then, he might leave her to suffer and live in this jungle, for the rest of her life. Skulker grinned as he started to think of many other ways he would dispose of his foes, waiting for his prey to come to him, like sheep to the slaughter.