It quickly became obvious that they were approaching her brother's location as the dry fields of corn started showing wide swaths of damage - fires flickering at the edges of craters, smoke billowing up out of them.
A green blast shot up into the sky, several more following as a dark streak followed a bright green one. Jazz leaned forward to watch, happy that Rick and Summer seemed to be fine slowing down to observe as well.
Her brother and the other ghost flew in quick, darting movements across the sky, trading blasts of energy in different shapes and colors. Shields flickered up occasionally, and just as the massive bat-bear ghost unleashed a barrage of slicing, whirling bands of energy, Danny ducked down and around.
Always impressed by his speed, Jazz whooped as the distinctive blue cone opened up, a furious roar tapering off as the Fenton Thermos did its job.
Jazz waved back to Danny's clearly confused salute, and watched his face light up when he recognized her.
Both ship and her brother descended to the earth, and he stayed a respectful distance back from the ship, despite the clear stars she could see in his eyes.
"Are you serious right now? A flying saucer ?!"
Jazz laughed, relieved when the yellow bubble around her disintegrated, and the three of them climbed out.
"I know, that's what I was thinking. Apparently we're in the future."
"Dude, that's so cool. Does everyone have them? Can it go into space? Can I try to drive it?"
"No, Yes, and Hell no. Back off, spooky."
The grins fell from their faces as the older man leveled a whining gun at Danny's face, the device in his wrinkled hand blinking and beeping.
"Mister… Rick, sir, Thanks for finding Danny, you don't have to… he's not dangerous."
He lifted the device, showing a tiny picture of Danny, glowing different shades of green.
"He's a ghost."
"What, those are real?"
Rick gave Summer an exasperated eyeroll, and she looked up at the clouds, whistling to herself.
"it's not what you think!" Jazz interjected, waving her hands and trying to think of something.
"Obviously not 'spirits of dead people,' souls don't have any real power. They don't tend to stick around, either. Real ghosts are just creatures made of other creature's thoughts after you let it sit around soaking in ectoplasm long enough. They suck the life out of other creatures to grow stronger, until there's nothing alive around to munch on, and then they move on. The gre-great migrating extinction event."
"I've never killed anyone!"
Danny jumped when the blue laser charred near his foot, retreating a few scuffs with a worried look at Jazz..
"Lucky you, you got to copy off a human. Your memories aren't Real . they aren't Yours . This isn't your brother, Jasmine. It's a copy made of goo that's been Ca-Chameleoning it up in here, until humanity becomes boring."
She watched his face pale several shades, a sick look passing over him.
They made quick eye contact, and she could tell he was thinking of that disastrous year with the alternate-older-self.
"I promised I wouldn't." He managed to grind out, and Rick just dialed the gun until it started emitting a high-pitched whine.
"Promises smomishes. The only difference between you and the bear thing is that you've made an effort to be sneaky. Now hold still while this thing powers up enough. I'd hate for it to take more than one shot in front of your sister."
"Rick, Stop. He's my brother. I've known he's half ghost for years now. You can drop the gun, I know he won't hurt us."
Rick just laughed. "You can't be half ghost. That's like being half vampire, or half an idiot. You can be an idiot AND something else, but it's an all or nothing game."
He pointed the gun at Danny's writhing tail, dragging it up toward his face.
"L-let me guess. You decided with your new sentience that 'hey, what the hell, why not possess my memory's corpse?' Got a nice family out of the deal. Easy access to unlimited meals. Maybe give 'em a few scares to sweeten the pot when other pickings are slim."
Danny twitched a shoulder uncomfortably, deliberately refusing to look away. Jazz took a few more steps forward, almost beside Rick now.
"He's my brother ."
"Same way a picture is your brother , or a Mirror is your brother. Y-your real brother bit the dust a long time ago, and his reflection isn't even denying it. All his actual thoughts and feelings are gone. This is just an off-brand copy, and I'm pretty sure it's considered rude on most Earths to run around in a dead body."
His expression morphed to irritation when Jazz edged in front of the gun, blocking it with her hand to try to make the case.
"Seriously?"
"He's not dead. Danny, tell him you're not dead."
Rick gave a low chuckle, pushing Jazz's arm aside when Danny remained silent. The unspoken agreement felt like a great weight was being placed across her shoulders, a sinking feeling starting in her gut. She'd heard these words from her parents before, but from someone else, it seemed more real.
"I'm surprised you're not tr-trying to lie your head off. Your sister's freaking out, man. You care don't you? You havehuman emotions don't you? O-Or have you given up pretending?"
Danny gave a slight shake of his head. "I care." He murmured. "But... I don't think I should..." He glanced toward Jazz, then back to the gun.
"I think I've lied enough for one lifetime"
"...Danny?"
"So, Jazz-zie, it's u-up to you. Blow his head off and put your long-dead brother to rest? Or keep hanging out with a-ugh..a warped imprint of his mind running around in his slowly rotting corpse."
"So…" Jazz hesitated, swallowing. She heard Summer sigh behind them, shuffling her feet with a quietly whispered'awkwaaard'
"...Is this why you never told mom and dad?"
Her brother lifted his shoulder in another tiny shrug, looking more at the ground than at the gun, clearly waiting for the hammer to fall.
"...Then you're really… dead."
Danny didn't respond.
Silence was damning.
"Are you going to shoot him, or shall I? it's almost juiced up."
Jazz inhaled slowly, stepping forward.
"He- He….. was my brother."
She saw the little wince, but even as she accepted the electric blue gun, leveling it at his chest, Danny didn't try to run. He looked up at her only once, the green of his eyes shining through translucent white hair, before looking back down to the ground.
She took a tiny step forward, the sparking tip of the gun making a few fine hairs rise up on the top of his head.
"Careful." The scientist behind her muttered. She heard him pull out a second weapon, and tried to swallow enough to speak. She hoped that he'd pay attention . .
"I've known… since the Spectra thing."
Green eyes flashed back up toward her, pure confusion glowing. They were the same words, please remember.
"I didn't want to to tell you until you wanted to tell me."
The confusion lasted a few moments, before a memory clicked into place, and his eyes widened. The heart-to-heart they had on the school steps, years ago. The way she'd gone out of her way to keep him safe from their parents, even while she already thought he was a true ghost, and not half.
It's our secret, now .
It took less than a blink for his hand to dart out, grabbing her wrist and pulling her forward. His power washed over her in a splash of icy breath, and a slash of green opened up the air in a ragged portal beside them.
Jazz felt heat snap past her cheek, the high-pitched zap of a discharging gun just barely missing them both before they fell into another portal to who-knew-where.
She held onto the gun, her free hand reaching out to grab onto his thin wrist in return, enduring the whirling colors of an unstable portal dragging them to another place.
"God DAMN it!" Rick shoved his gun back into his pocket, yanking out the portal gun and twisting the knob furiously.
"Get in the ship, Summer. We can't be sure where they're headed, but we-we've gotta stop 'em."
"What's the big deal?" She still hopped back into the passenger seat, buckling in. "She made her choice, creepy as it was.."
"Her Choice was supposed to be 'Blow his head off' but they cle-cl- obviously have more trust in their relationship than I thought. Think, Summer. What do ghosts feed off of?"
"Uh, fear, I guess?" She held onto the armrests as the ship darted forward.
"Close, real close. Emotions in general. Fear's just tasty shit. Like candy. A ghost gets more powerful the more emotions it feeds on, and now we've got a ghost stuck in a human body. It can do whatever it wants in there, Summer. It can make that body feel as much fear as it wants, for as long as it wants." He turned when he heard her mutter 'yikes' under her breath.
"You have no idea, Summer. This one can make its own Portals . It could devour everyone and anything, in every universe, if it decided it wanted to. Just suck up everything like the world's nastiest hoover."
Rick reached out the window, shooting the portal and rolling the window up just as his ship zipped through it. They emerged just outside the driveway a moment later, swooping into the tight garage.
"So why hasn't it done that already?"
"Because Ghosts tend to be aggressive and hungry, but I never said they were smart . Either way, they're not supposed to be able to leave their own warped little part of reality unless someone dropped a real big dookie on the universe's fan. I'm betting the wonder siblings are a good place to start"
"Can you even track someone across universes?" The two of them unbuckled, and Rick rushed to his work station.
"Normally? No. But those kids sh-shed radiation like an antivaxxer's kids shed measles, so I should be able to whip something up." He yanked down on a lever, and several panels opened up, blinking and beeping.
"I hope you're fond of beige Jumpsuits, Grandpa."
"What the fuck? No. I'm not."
Summer ignored him, blithely continuing.
"Because we're about to become Ghost Busters!"
"Oh. The remake was shitty."
"Yeah, well, I enjoyed it."
"You have shitty taste."
"GHOST BUSTERS!"