Ch. 10
Ten minutes later saw us outside roaming the streets. Sam, Tucker, and I had all grabbed onto the ghost kid and he had flown us out of some house with a blimp on the roof. I didn't really manage to get a good enough look at it while we left it. Being up in the air had given me the opportunity to better guide us to where I had last seen Puck. Fantastically enough, the crater was still there and provided the perfect landmark for me from above.
I was let down right next to the crater and then the others went to hide. Looking around, I realized that there was something not quite right about my whole situation, logically speaking. The crater was empty…in fact, there was no body anywhere. Shouldn't my body be here somewhere? I skirted around the hole, but found absolutely nothing. There wasn't even a trace of blood. "I am so done with this town and all the weird stuff that happens here," I muttered to myself, glaring down at the dent in the cement. How could a human even make an impact like that? It was like physics just didn't exist in the town.
"Helloooo there, Miss Grumpy," trilled a familiar voice by my ear. I jumped to the side, then turned and glared murderously at the upside-down floating figure of Puck. He was grinning at me smugly, arms crossed.
It took an enormous amount of willpower to not punch a crater into his stupid head. "I'm going to make your afterlife a living Hell, y'know that?" I said, crossing my own arms as I waited. He began to speak, clearly still amused at my anger, but was cut off when the ghost kid flew straight out of the building and tackled him away. Tucker and Sam came running up a moment later from their hiding spots. I'm not going to lie I was pretty pleased with the look of horror and confusion on Puck's face as he was tackled. Payback was only just beginning.
Puck clawed at the ghost boy's arms before he was released. He tried to speak but was interrupted with a right punch to his face. I cheered, unable to help myself from the sweet, sweet justice being dealt. It would only have been better if it had been me kicking his butt. The thermos was just coming out when Puck decided to finally put a stop to things. "Enough!" he yelled, releasing a green burst of energy that sent the ghost kid flying back and the rest of us stumbling.
Phantom recovered quickly, but not quick enough. Puck flew straight at me, grabbed my arm then hauled me away from Sam and Tucker. "Hey! Let go of me!" I yelled, squirming and clawing at the fingers wrapped around me. When he did nothing, I yelled with pure frustration, at least giving the others an idea of where I was.
It was enough. A green blast hit Puck in the side. He grunted, dropping me with surprise as he checked his side. I, meanwhile, plummeted towards Earth for the second time in less than a week. It was starting to become a rather unhealthy habit. With a scream, I closed my eyes and hoped I'd just end up going through the earth. However, I felt nothing except for a light breeze. When I peeked through my fingers, I saw that I was actually floating in air. "Whoa," I said, taking my hands down from my face and glancing around. I wasn't even upside down!
No one seemed to notice my miraculous improvement as they were busy focusing on Puck again. Phantom was flying back at Puck again, but he disappeared right before he could land a punch. I felt pretty sure that was unfair during a fight but I wasn't quite clear on the rules of ghost dueling. Maybe they didn't even have rules because they were already dead.
Before I had much of a chance to contemplate such complexities, arms wrapped around my torso and bound my arms to my sides. Puck had me and was flying us away from the others. "I swear to all that is good and righteous in this world, I'm gonna smack your damn face off!" I yelled, kicking and flailing as much as I could with my arms bound. He was surprisingly strong for a dead dude, a fact I found mildly disappointing. Whatever happened to ghosts being wisps of intangibleness? Ghost stories were just full of lies, honestly.
"I'm not trying to hurt you, Max, geez! If I had wanted to smack you senseless, trust me, I would've by now!" he tried to explain, grunting with the effort of restraining me. I cursed extremely colorfully at him before I rammed my head back against his. It hurt like hell, but it got him to loosen his grip enough for me to wiggle free. He held his palm to his forehead, groaning before he snatched at me again. Furious, I whipped an arm out and suddenly I felt power rush down my arm. Cyan-colored energy pooled in my hand and then shot out at him, knocking him right out of the air, though part of it was probably shock. The blast didn't look nearly as powerful as what Phantom had been throwing out, but it was still enough.
"Hah! Suck it!" I yelled triumphantly, throwing my hands up in victory as he crashed into the ground below. Instantly, the ghost boy was upon him, thermos at the ready. Puck was sucked up into the tiny tin of terror in seconds. It felt pretty great to know that someone else got to experience the suffocating closeness of the thermos. Sam and Tucker joined Phantom as he landed on the ground and I started the laborious journey of figuring out how to land. I mostly just squirmed for a while before I suddenly just dropped out of the air and landed on the ground, first on my feet before falling onto my rear. Wincing, I looked up at the others who were checking to make sure the thermos was locked.
I couldn't hear what they were talking about until I heaved myself to my feet and limped over to them, wondering why ghosts could still feel pain. Phantom held up the thermos and smirked at me. "See? Told you we'd get him," he practically boasted.
I rolled my eyes, wanting to grab the thermos and punt it into the next dimension. Somehow, I held back. "Can you please just send him back to the other place, now? Things would be a lot better in the world if he wasn't pissing everyone off," I said. He glanced at his friends, shrugged, then grabbed Sam and Tucker and lifted them up to start for the lab.
Try as I might, I couldn't figure out how to fly from where I was standing. Grumbling, I picked up a jog and started after them, cursing the ghost boy for flying so fast. Would it kill him again to give me a few pointers on being dead?