Chapter 4:

Sam

Started:

June 29th 2012

Edited:

July 19th 2012

Uploaded:

July 19th 2012

Chapter warnings:

Language, sexual references

Chapter rating:

T+

Dan phased through the wall and landed silently beside my desk. I barely glanced up as he approached me, standing slightly behind and leaning one hand on my desk as he leans over me, reading my report over my shoulder.

Ignoring him, I continued to type, knowing it bugged him and smirking a little. His annoyed growl only encouraged me to continue before he grabbed a hold of my chair and swirled it around, glaring at me. "Stop ignoring me!" His red eyes smoldered with anger and I simply raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well?" I asked as he remained silent. "What are you so desperate to tell me?"

He growled, narrowing his eyes at me and I stood my ground, not giving him an inch, knowing he's trying to assert his dominance over me and therefore the operation. If I were to give ground and add a 'please' or any other sort of politeness to my gruff statement, he'd use it to take a mile.

Eventually, our staring contest drew out the last of his patience and attention and he snorted, crossing his arms like a child. "The ghost zone isn't much better than here." He'd been sent on a mission into the ghost zone to see what there was to see. We hadn't had the time or the money to venture into the green yonder, especially without a ghost around to keep us protected. Dan's arrival had been the perfect opportunity to probe the zone since Danny had been around.

Dan rubbed the collar around his neck, snorting with displeasure. "I doubt we'd find very much help in there." I sighed, having anticipated the answer but still not liking it.

"Well…thanks for checking anyway, Dan." I noticed the slight flicker of surprise and pleasure that passed by in his eyes as I thanked him, turning back to my computer.

"What are you doing?" He was probing, carefully testing the waters and his limitations with me. I could hear the slight hesitation in his voice, despite how desperately he was trying to hide it. A small smile of amusement spread on my face but I quickly banished it. I knew I was over analyzing it, and I didn't want to start to think he was on our side and then have him turn against us.

"I'm just writing a report of that run Valerie and I did the other day." I muttered, continuing to type as he leans over my shoulder, reading it.

"Oh." He said, bored of it already. It must suck having a mind of a fourteen year old. "I'm bored."

"I figured." I saved the document, making a mental note to review it later and I turned to him, resting my chin on one hand as I smile up at him. "What's on your mind? I'm sure Tucker has a patrol or something he'd love to send you on."

"I don't want to go on a mission." Dan huffed, plopping into an old couch that sat against one wall. "I'm bored of that. It's always the same, crushing some Danny clones- which, by the way, is an amazing amount of fun- and retreating when we get too close to what we assume is Vlad's base. Why can't I just go in? I want to kick some Vlad ass."

"I've told you before that's suicide. Even for a ghost." I tried to reign in my annoyance at having to explain this again. "We have no idea what kind of ghosts or people, or ghost weapons he has hiding behind those doors, or even if he's in there. We can't risk you, or anyone else, being destroyed because of a foolish, headstrong urge to go in. It's got to be strategic and careful."

Dan flung one arm over his arms, groaning at my lecture. "I know… you've run through this before." He raised his other hand and made a crude talking motion. "Blah blah blah safety first. You always were a mothering type of woman."

He and I paused as he said that, he very rarely mentioned anything about his memories of the past, and I never pressed him for them. It was a touchy subject for the both of us. The awkward moment passed slowly, the both of us silent and remembering before he sprang up, cracking his knuckles. "I guess I'll just go to the gym." He nodded as he spoke, as if he himself weren't sure what he were saying until it came out of his mouth.

"Right. I'm going to finish this report, and then go on a supplies run if you want to come with." I pulled my hair back, tying it in a bun before turning back to my computer.

"Huh. Yeah, maybe I will. I can be like your body guard or something." Dan grinned, punching the air and I smiled, reminded of Danny. "But I'm going to go work out now. Come on down to the gym when you're ready."

"So you couldn't find any ghosts?"

"No…it was completely abandoned." Dan frowned, running his finger along a shelf thick with dust and grimacing with disgust at it. "I searched for hours, and you know how large the zone is. Maybe there were some beyond where I went but, whatever. I wasn't going any deeper in with this damned collar on."

I rolled my eyes, grabbing as many canned foods as I can, making sure to skip the rotten, bloated cans, having learned from experience that they're dangerous. "You know why that stays on."

"I know. But that doesn't mean that I can't fucking hate it." Dan glared at the door, cracking his knuckles as if daring anyone to come in and give him an excuse to punch them out. Around us, explosions sounded as more and more teams met with Vlad's army and engaged in combat.

We had to end that soon.

"Tucker's spy-bots got back to us." I say distractedly, passing him a full bag of canned food and looking around for anything else that might be of use. "He's decoding it and then if the reports are good, we can sneak into Vlad's base. Maybe take him out."

He grinned his wolfish grin, his sharp, shark-like teeth glistening in the pale light. "Great. I'd love to punch that punk right in the jaw!"

The com-watch beeped and we both froze, looking down at it before up at each other. Dan instantly clenched his fists and a deep, primitive growl rising up in his throat.

"Well well well…what do we have here?" A smug, sly voice purred out from just behind me and Dan twisted around, trying and failing to get his powers to come to him as his collar did its job, his eyes narrowed with hatred. "A couple of trespassers, hm? Tsk…how sad."

A hand gripped my chin and turned my face around, leaving me staring right into the red eyes of Plasmius. "And really, by sad I mean sad for you." He cackled like a hyena. "I couldn't care one smidgeon about you!" He brought my face close to his as another pair of arms wrapped around me. I didn't need to turn around to know that it was a duplicate of Vlad's holding me in place. Dan was probably trapped by another one. "I'd give you a message to send to that little tech friend of yours…but I'm afraid I know it won't be getting to him. Nevertheless, he should learn to keep his pesky little bugs out of my business."

I opened my mouth to retort but he pressed my jaws closed, his grin exposing his vampire-like teeth. "Now now Samantha, I don't want to hear that grating voice of yours." I felt the arms of my captor melt into sticky ectoplasm, binding my hands and arms to my body. "Not until I want you to scream, that is." He chuckled, turning my head to see Dan, his red eyes blazing with rage as he struggles against the pools of ectoplasm gluing him to the wall. Without his powers, he's useless.

I curse that stupid collar, making a mental note to get it off the second we're out of this situation. "What's the matter, Vladdie?" Dan snarled, and my eyes snapped over to him again, silently willing him to shut up. "Maddie won't love you? Oooh boohoo. The poor baby." He sneered, baring his fangs as if to threaten Vlad.

But Plasmius knew he was powerless. "Madeline will love me in her own time." He replied, lazily inspecting his gloved hands. "She's mine now, and that's what matters. I'll impress her with my world, when I've dealt with this pesky resistance, I'll rule, and she will be my Queen." His grin almost split his face and if he wasn't still holding my chin, I would have backed away. "And she will love me!" Power pulsated out of him and knocked me onto my back, Plasmius' fists clenched as he turned towards the trapped Dan.

Dan was grinning, as if all of this was planned and entertaining. Vlad stalked up to him, cracking his knuckles as he approached. "Are you amused, you pathetic excuse for ectoplasm? What amuses you? Your pathetic situation? Your girlfriend helpless on the ground?"

"She's not my girlfriend." Dan growled, muscles rippling under the splatter of ectoplasm. "And I'm grinning because this is all so ….so stupid. Maddie won't ever love you, and you're stuck with your head up your ass in your own damned fantasy. Have you looked around you? The world you want to rule is shit." Plasmius' lips peeled back, his ghostly aura brightening with anger. "We're in a corner store to steal canned goods, there's barely any natural life around us, the world is basically dust. And you want this?" Dan laughed, enraging Plasmius even more. "You really are a fruitloop."

Plasmius snarled, punching Dan across the jaw and I winced as I heard a sickening crunch. "I am not a fruitloop!" he snarled, cape billowing as his powers kicked up a wind from nowhere. "I'll enjoy destroying you!" His voice lowered to a hiss which was almost more terrifying than his yelling. "I'll pick off your stupid little team one by one." At this, Plasmius stalked back over to me. "And I'm starting with this little bitch here."

Dan's eyes almost popped out of his head with his anger. I could feel the anger and power radiating from the time-travelling ghost, the collar sending sparks along his skin, his muscles rippling as he tried to rip out of the ectoplasmic slime, growling as Vlad grabbed me and lifted me up.

"Checkmate, ghost." Plasmius grinned as Dan struggled. "I have the key to your group. You'll all crumble, one. By. One." Plasmius began to laugh as we vanished in a puff of pink smoke.

Teleportation was weird. It was like being condensed into a small space, which lasted for so long my heart raced and I began to panic. I've never been good with small spaces. But as soon as it started it was over, and I felt like I was being stretched thirty feet tall, though I couldn't really see in the pink mass that we were in so I had no way to tell.

And then it was over and I was thrown roughly into a cold, brick wall. "Ugh…" I didn't have enough time to register was what happening before my arms were yanked roughly above my head and cuffed to the ceiling. My feet dangled so my toes barely touched the ground. I bit my tongue, refusing to scream. They wanted me to scream.

I peeled open one eye ever so slightly, peering at the ghosts in the room with me. They were glowing skeletons, reminding me of the time so long ago when Danny fought Pariah Dark's army. They cackled together, their teeth clattering as they joked about something. If I didn't want to let them know I was awake, I would have glanced up at my wrists. As it was, I could barely move with my screaming arm muscles.

There was something wrong. I didn't know what was happening, what Vlad planned to do with me, but I knew I needed to get out. Gritting my teeth, I clenched my fists, swinging my legs up to my chest and started to rock, my feet contacting with the skull of one of the skeleton ghosts, knocking it forward and into the other one.

I swung back with my momentum, watching the ghosts warily as I glanced up at the cuffs and chains that held my arms to the ceiling. The cast-iron hook was sealed and embedded deeply into the rock overhead. There was no way I'd be able to break the chains.

My swinging slowly stopped and I regretted it. My arms screamed more than ever, the muscles in my armpits working to keep my arms in their sockets. A losing effort, it felt like.

The skeleton I knocked down got back on its feet, its red eyes glowing and its jaw clattering. It brought its arm back, as if to hit me when it froze, it and it's friend's heads turning towards the only door in the room.

"What's going on in here?" That wasn't Vlad's voice… I paused, trying to place it, and then I almost choked- Walker.

The skeleton ghosts clacked their jaws as they scurried from the room, Walker entering with Plasmius close behind him. "Would you look at that. The punk's bed buddy."

I blushed just thinking about what could have been and Walker's skeleton face seemed to twist in a grin, the bleach white of his skull glowing harshly under the florescent lights. "Yes yes, now you need to take her away." Plasmius waved his hand as if to dismiss it. "Take her to your prison or something."

Walker's gloved hand grabbed my chin, yanking my head forward, inspecting me with his hollow eye sockets. "The price you ask is high, Plasmius. Especially with the punk no longer around, there's no thrill."

"But there is." Plasmius hovered closer, his arms crossed. "Because although Daniel isn't around anymore, there is another that'll come for her." He smirked knowingly at me, and I glared back. "So there's always the thrill of anticipation. And besides, even if he doesn't come from her, she's alive. She'll bleed."

Walker grinned. "I'll take her then."

A/N:

Hey guys!

Woah okay so this chapter was actually pretty long! ...I guess? haha, I'm not actually sure. But anyway, I don't know if anyone noticed but I've changed the rating from "M" to "T" until the story actually needs the "M" rating. I'm hoping i'll get a few more reviews because more will see it this way. Anyway~ I'm not planning on making this story extra long. I'm thinking maybe 7 to 10 chapters, considering we're already getting into the action. ANYWHOODLE~! I'll catch you all next time~!

ALSO. I have Word back! 8D I have an amazingly awesome friend who gave me a code and iesjdklf I AM SO HAPPY.

RAY OUT! :D