Quick gore warning for some of my more sensitive readers. You know the drill - there's a summary at the bottom for you.
The doors of the derelict building slammed in the wind, making Jack jump. Moonlight streamed through gaps in the wooden planks that formed the walls and ceiling of the barn, practically rotting off their nails.
"Why would you even think of checking out a haunted farm in the middle of the night?" Phantom huffed, adjusting his grip on an ectogun.
Jack flapped his hands at the spectre in an attempt to get him to shut up.
Phantom had been using the Fentons' kitchen to patch up an injured leg when Jack tried to sneak out. There had been e brief altercation, but neither seemed willing to argue loud enough to disturb he Fenton women, and had taken their disagreement outside. Despite the barn being secluded and the hour late, a ghost was a ghost, and if hunters didn't deal with it, someone could get hurt. True to his stubborn nature, Jack didn't let the kid's objections stop him from leaving.
It seemed that he had finally found someone whose stubbornness and protective nature rivalled his own.
The limping halfa's boot slipped on rotten hay, and Phantom would have gone sprawling if he didn't have Jack's shoulder to grab. "Stupid Plasmius," he grumbled as he righted himself.
Jack wasn't sure how useful a powerless halfa would be, but the kid had hunting experience and was a good shot with a gun. If he was perfectly honest with himself, Jack was glad that Phantom had insisted on tagging along – the inventor's aim was terrible, and it was nice to have someone watching his back while he controlled the technology.
Twisting the dial on his tracker, Jack frowned. "This place was brimming with energy when I scanned it remotely from the lab."
"Maybe the ghost's gone," Phantom said, glancing at the scanner's blank radar. "My ghost sense isn't working right now, so I can't tell you if this place is safe, or if your machine's just busted."
There was danger here.
Jack might be more of an inventor than a hunter, but he would always be sensitive to spiritual activity. Descended from a long line of empaths and ghost hunters, the man always knew when something wasn't quite right.
That was the true reason that he had trusted Phantom so quickly – in a relaxed situation, Jack felt no trace of malice or foreboding emanating from the teen. Even though Phantom had healed his wife and protected his family, it would have meant nothing if Jack automatically felt afraid around him.
A flurry of activity in the shadows beneath the hayloft sent mice fleeing, their tiny forms darting away from the spot to disappear through holes in the floor and walls. The hairs on the back of Jack's neck stood on end, and he reached for his own ectopistol with a trembling hand.
This feeling wasn't coming from Phantom, and the radar wasn't picking anything up.
Somewhere in that barn, something was alive that wanted to kill them.
"Jack?" Phantom breathed, settling into a fighting stance as best he could in order to improve balance on the slippery floor. Even with ghost powers out of order, he obviously felt that same foreboding.
Footsteps.
The noise moved towards the pair from the corner of darkness, sending more mice running. Although a person should have been easily visible, none could be seen as the steps reached the two ghost hunters.
Jack had shifted to press his shoulder against Phantom's back, effectively keeping both of their gazes on the spot where the steps had stopped whilst still guarding the teen's back.
"Fools," a voice snaked from the invisible being.
Phantom let out a groan of disgust. "Oh my gosh, Fruitloop, you actually had me going there."
"Aren't you afraid that I'm here to hurt you?" the voice asked, voicing Jack's thoughts exactly.
"Go ghost and turn visible," Phantom said. "You never hurt me badly, and you've already hit me pretty hard tonight. Let's all part ways, and you can have another whack at me tomorrow."
"I am not here for you, Daniel."
Phantom moved so that he was shielding Jack's body. "Don't even think about it!" he shouted, shifting from irritated teenager to protective and slightly pissed off hero. It was an instant transition that Jack had become familiar with over the past few months, making the man wonder exactly how many 'masks' Phantom wore.
"You really have no say in the matter in that condition," the source of Jack's unease said. "Why do you think I took such pains to render you powerless? Now there is no way for you to rescue this pathetic man."
"Show yourself, fiend!" Jack bellowed, angling his gun towards the source of that unsettlingly familiar voice.
The smile materialised first, gruesome with the split lip and bruised jaw. "Your little friend can punch rather hard," it said as the rest of the body began to form in stages, making Jack think of the Cheshire cat from Wonderland.
He had never liked cats.
Jack's old college buddy slowly formed in a shaft of moonlight, the grin never leaving his face as he smoothed back silver hair and straightened the cuffs of a sleek black suit.
Vlad.
Jack blinked a couple of times, staring as his friend appeared out of nothing. His mind presented the answer instantly – with one halfa pressed up against him, Jack had no trouble identifying another one.
Everything in the world suddenly seemed as though it was about to cave in, crushing the man beneath a pile of rubble.
And he would deserve it.
"The proto-portal," Jack breathed, allowing the gun to drop back to his side. He didn't holster the weapon – that feeling of danger was still as strong as ever.
But how could he ever shoot Vlad?
Phantom raised an eyebrow. "Are you nuts?" he snapped. "All these years of keeping everything all hush-hush, and one night you just decide to lure us to an abandoned barn so you can show off your invisibility in human form?"
"One day I'll teach you that gradual reappearing trick," Vlad promised, disarming Phantom with a simple jab and twist. "Maybe once I've taken my rightful place as your father?"
Everything was wrong. Jack stared at his old friend in horror as light swept over the man, turning him into the blue-skinned, fanged spectre clothed in red and black and white that had terrorised Amity Park for so many years.
Where Phantom had been obviously innocent for anyone who cared too look, this one's ledger dripped scarlet.
"In your nightmares," Phantom responded, moving to punch Plasmius in a nose that was swollen and crusted with blood from their earlier altercation.
The older halfa caught the fist before it could connect. "Such bad manners," he chided, swiping a knife that glowed red across the back of the kid's hand.
Phantom gasped as a line of red and green welled up in its wake, pulling his hand back and tearing off the glove.
Plasmius chuckled, summoning twin bursts of red energy to his hands. "Farewell, Jack. I will take good care of your family. Daniel, I trust that I'll see you when you re-form."
As he spoke, the ghost flicked his wrists, sending the blasts sailing through the air to collide with the barn's walls. Although rotted to the point of collapse, the wood was barely damp after an uncharacteristically dry winter, and burst into flames.
Jack aimed and fired, but the blast from his gun whizzed harmlessly past Vlad's shoulder, hitting the back wall of the barn and setting that ablaze as well.
Laughing, Plasmius gave a mocking salute. "This way, nobody will be able to blame me for your murder," he announced before disappearing in a flash of light that Jack recognised from seeing Phantom teleport.
Phantom was crouched on the floor, staring at a hand that had turned the colour of asphalt. The halfa's undamaged hand dipped into the top of his boot, producing a wickedly long knife. Holding up his damaged hand, the kid turned to Jack. "Quick, it's spreading!" he shouted. "You've got to break my arm at the elbow right now, or my entire body will turn to dust!"
The building was on fire, Phantom had a knife, and the kid's hand was already falling apart at the tips of his fingers.
Grasping Phantom's shoulder and slack wrist, Jack knelt beside him as though proposing. Taking a deep breath, the man brought the elbow down against his knee. It bent the wrong way with a wet snap, and Phantom sobbed involuntarily before laying his arm against the floor.
The boy shoved his glove into his mouth, screwing tear-filled eyes shut and holding out the weapon.
Jack snatched the knife from his trembling fingers, bringing it down in the busted joint with all the force he could muster. It took a couple of sawing motions for the limb to be completely amputated, and Jack could only be glad that Phantom had thought to clear the path by breaking bones.
The kid's scream was terrible in its intensity, and Phantom curled in on himself, clutching at the stump of his arm. He stayed that way, seemingly unable to move, as the hand crumbled into powder, leaving an abandoned forearm that slowly began to morph into dust as well.
All of a sudden, reality caught up the man, and Jack Fenton felt a scream swell somewhere in his chest.
He had just cut off the kid's arm!
"Did it spread?" Jack said, reaching to lay his hand on the shoulder that was attached the Phantom's good arm.
The sobbing boy shook his head. "Fire," he gasped. "Go!"
Immiscible blood and ectoplasm was everywhere, smearing in streaks across clothing and skin and pooling on the floor.
Jack gathered Phantom into his arms, holding the trembling body close as he raced towards the doors. Heat washed over the hunter, his hazmat providing little protection from something so intense. "We're going to have to run through the fire," he warned as they approached the wall of flame.
At least the trip would be uninterrupted, since one of the doors had already fallen off its hinges.
Phantom shuddered, pressing his face into Jack's shoulder. "Hot," he gasped, and Jack remembered that the kid had an ice core.
"Okay," Jack said, keeping his voice as level as possible. As much as he wanted to scream and cry and throw up, panic would do nothing but ensure death. "Just hold your breath, close your eyes, and count to ten. I promise we'll be outside in the cold."
There was so much blood.
The halfa shut his eyes and took a deep breath, and Jack ran headfirst into the fire.
There was heat and light, and then they were out under the stars and their hair and eyebrows were giving off smoke.
Jack placed the teen carefully in the grass. Stripping off his orange jumpsuit, the man cut off the sleeve and tied it around Phantom's arm as a makeshift tourniquet. "Hang in there," he pleaded, pulling the fabric as tight as it could go.
Halfas were immortal, Jack knew that much. Vlad had just tried to turn Phantom into dust that would have been burned as well, but it was obvious that the young halfa was fully expected to regenerate from such damage. For a moment Jack wondered if that meant that pulling the kid apart molecule by molecule wouldn't actually destroy him, but the thought was quickly quashed as Phantom gave a cry for help.
"Fire… knife…" he rasped in between laden breaths. "Stop… bleeding…"
Staring at the knife in his hand, Jack felt like he was going to pass out. "But exsanguination won't kill you, will it?"
Phantom's brow scrunched. "Healing… too long… many months…"
With Plasmius on the loose and thirsting for Jack's blood, the man decided that he needed the kid to keep him alive and Maddie safe. Nodding his head, he headed back to the fire with knife in hand.
There really was no other option, since the man never carried a phone on him, and Phantom's had been busted by Plasmius a couple of days ago.
Vlad had planned this well.
Cutting off the other sleeve of his suit, Jack wrapped it around the handle of the knife as further insulation before sticking the blade in the flames. The heat radiating off the fire was incredible, and Jack turned his head to the side, gasping for fresh air as the knife heated.
The blade's tip glowed red when he withdrew it, and Jack hurried back to the groaning boy.
"Okay," the hunter whispered as he knelt beside Phantom, "the knife's ready."
Phantom uncurled just enough to extend his arm. "Stick… to bite?"
Unwinding his sleeve from where it was wrapped around the knife, Jack balled it up and shoved the fabric into the kid's mouth.
The metal had just stopped glowing, and Jack took a deep breath, steeling himself.
Heated metal met the severed flesh with a hiss and the smell of burnt meat.
Phantom's scream was muffled, the muscles in his jaw clenching as his body seized up under the intense pain. Tears streamed down his cheeks, leaving clean trails through the soot.
Jack flipped the knife over, applying the other side to the second half of the wound as the child stiffened and screamed once more.
"Okay, it's done."
Phantom spat out the fabric, leaning his shaking body against his companion. "RV," he whispered.
Right.
Picking up the boy again, Jack carried him to where the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle was parked a few metres away. He buckled Phantom into the shotgun seat, fetching a blanket from the back to cover him with as the halfa's head tilted back, eyelids fluttering.
Phantom gave a faint smile, his hand closing over Jack's. "I'm gunna pass out," he whispered through colourless lips, "but I'll wake up soon."
Jack nodded as the boy closed his eyes. "I'll be here," he promised.
"Best dad ever," came the near-silent reply.
He fell limp in a flash of light, and Jack finally screamed as the ghost boy whose arm he had just cut off turned into a scrawny, familiar teenager with hair as black as the sky above them.
Summary:
-Jack and Phantom end up tracking a ghost to an abandoned farm late at night.
-Said ghost is Vlad, who reveals his secret, insults Danny, and then decides to kill Jack.
-Danny's hand gets cut by a ghostly weapon that'll turn him to dust, and the barn is set on fire. Vlad leaves, thinking that the fire will kill Jack.
-Jack cuts off Phantom's arm and gets them out of the burning building.
-The site of amputation is cauterised since there is no way to call for help.
-Danny turns human and passes out from the pain.