I hugged my knees while sitting on a rock further inside the cave. I knew I couldn't have saved him, I had tried my best, and at least I saved Lily. That was good enough right? No it wasn't. I knew I could save him. It was possible. I could have done it.
"You know sulking in a corner on a rock won't help anything right?" Vlad sat down beside me and I sighed.
"I could have saved him Vlad, I was there, I was close enough and I didn't save him" I hated beating myself up like his but honestly I really couldn't help it; I just couldn't.
"And beating yourself up over one child when you could be out there helping more people is helping how?" he asked. My eyes widened at his sentence. Forgetting about why I was upset for a moment, I stared at him in shock.
"What do you mean help other people Vlad? Who attacked the Far Frozen?" I hoped it wasn't the worst ghost I knew. I really wished it wasn't who it most likely was.
"His name is Dan," and my wish just went right down the toilet, "he is the-" "I know who he is" I told him softly. I didn't need a repeat of what he did and who he was.
"Then you know what he's going to do then?" I nodded and got up, putting up my hood. If I was right, I needed to move right now, at top speed.
"I just hope I'm not too late" with that I started a run towards the entrance of the cave. The moment I stepped out, I jumped and flew at my top speed to the Fenton portal. Along the way, I managed to find more victims of Dan's rampage. Ghosts everywhere were suffering the loss of their homes or managing their wounds. I knew that they would be able to help each other and they would be fine.
I desperately needed to get to Amity right now. The humans won't stand a chance against Dan. I closed my eyes trying to prep myself for the destruction, and possibly death, I was about to see. I finally spotted the portal after what seemed like an eternity, and that's saying a lot since I'm a ghost, and flew straight through. I expected to see the somewhat familiar walls of the lab in Fenton works.
What I wasn't expecting was to find the street. The whole of Fenton works was destroyed, that was putting it quite lightly. The place was most likely suffering from an explosion from Dan. I was glad that the portal at least survived somehow. I glanced back at the portal. Okay, scratch that, the portal had collapsed after I left the zone. I took the air once again and looked for the trio. It was actually kind of easy; all I had to do was look for exploding stuff and follow the sounds of fighting.
Landing close by, I looked around and immediately regretted it. There were some dead bodies littered around the street. Multiple of them were burnt beyond recognition and somehow still bleeding. I spotted Jack and Maddie's dead bodies. They were both burnt very badly and had multiple cuts bruises and oh my god, Jack's arm was missing and still spewing out blood. His arm was shoved into Maddie's throat and she was missing an eyeball, which was on the ground staring at me.
I quickly looked away, I could feel bile coming up my throat and I had to swallow it down. I could feel the tears in my eyes as I flew off to the battle. I had to avert my eyes from more and more of the dismembered bodies. I had to stop myself from puking and from crying. I was here now and I could help.
If there was anyone left to help. My mind reminded me. I wiped away some of the new tears that had formed and found the trio. I immediately flew towards, barely noticing Jazz's body which had here head dismembered and hanging on a rope on a lamppost with her body leaning on said lamppost. Her hand was clutching a Fenton bazooka.
She had gone down fighting at least. I thought to myself before joining Danny, Sam and Tucker. They were almost evenly tied in a match with Dan. Sam and Tucker were using something that looking like the Fenton peeler only it had guns and other ghost weapons coming out of it. I flew forwards and fired a light beam at Dan. It caused him to be distracted momentarily and I took a short risk and looked at his aura.
It was muddied red which meant repelling anger, dark green which meant jealousy, resentment, insecurity, low self-esteem and blame to self and others. His last aura was black which meant long-term unforgiveness (?) towards others. How am I not surprised? I stopped looking at his aura and joined the trio.
"Are you guys okay?" I winced at the glares they gave me.
"Sorry, standard question." With that Dan rose up one again and used his ghostly wail. It knocked us all backwards and he walked slowly towards us while using some ecto goop thing to stick us to the ground.
"I'm surprised you somehow managed to last that long in a fight Danny. But then again you had help from your friends and who's this?" he approached me and lifted up my chin forcefully to look him straight in the eye. I squinted and tried to look elsewhere; anywhere but the eyes of a cold blooded killer.
"I don't remember ever seeing you. But then again you never existed in my timeline which off course was destroyed by my younger self. What a glorious time that was wasn't Danny?" he turned to his younger self now and I used this moment to make something behind him. I gathered up all the shadows I could see and sense and turned it into multiple things. I could feel the shadows trying not to cooperate and I knew I was running out of time so I mentally pleaded with them to help.
They listened and formed into a large pack of wolves. Dan turned around in shock when he heard the growling and got tackled by five to nine wolves. It was hard to see what was happening under the black mass of wolves but I knew they were holding down and restraining Dan, at least long enough for some of the other wolves to help us escape. As I had said, four large shadow wolves approached us and clawed at the ecto goop and freed all of us.
"Thank you" I said to the wolf that freed me and it nodded in response and joined its shadow wolf pack and attacked Dan with the three other wolves. Dan threw all the wolves off him using another ghostly wail and scattered them all over. They yelped in pain and I held my stomach as I felt their pain course through me. I turned the wolves back into shadows to lessen their pain but got slashed by an ecto whip afterwards.
The whip had also hit Danny, Sam and Tucker and I was bleeding slightly. I pressed my hand to the wound to see green blood on it. I hissed in pain and fired a light beam while Danny fired an ice blast combined with an ecto blast and Sam and Tucker both fired rockets from their suits. There was a large puff of smoke and I fired four beams of light which caught Dan at each limb and attached him to a random wall a distance away.
"If you guys are going to do something you might want to do it now, I can't restrain him for long!" I shouted over while concentrating. I added a layer of shadows over the bands of light restraining him hoping that it would help hold him for a little longer. I grit my teeth when he struggled more and used eye beams to destroy them. I created another layer and another one and felt beads of sweat down the side of my face.
"Now would be nice!" I shout again and they finally do something. Danny uncaps a Fenton thermos and sucks him in very anticlimactically. I finally stop and fell to my knees panting slightly and check my wound which had started to heal already. Thank you enhanced healing! I could hear Dan shouting and screaming from inside the thermos and I grabbed it from Danny and gave it a really good shake.
"That's for destroying my home you evil sicko! Wait, home… Oh no! Dad's gotta be so worried and my only way of getting back is destroyed!" I pulled at my hair and 'accidentally' dropped the thermos earning a loud protest from Dan. I continued spewing off a list of concerns and complaints while pacing while Tucker picked up the thermos again.
"What am I going to do-" a blue portal opened and went through us causing us to go through it and for me to get interrupted from my rant.
"-now?" I continued slowly and quietly when I observed my surrounding. The whole place was covered in clocks and there was an endless amount of ticking happening here.
"No need for you to worry Shannon, I believe you know where you are" my eyes widened and I spun around quickly to the source of the voice. I narrowed my eyes at the sight of Clockwork while the three others in the room looked at me astonished.
"Your real name is Shannon?" they asked simultaneously. I ignored their comment and continued staring down Clockwork.
"If you don't mind I'm going to get back to the tribe" I turned towards the door and started walking past the trio and close to the doorknob. Seconds later however I found myself back at my original position. I glared at Clockwork and was about to walk over to the door again when he stopped me with his time staff thingy.
"I'm sorry but I cannot allow you to return to your second home Shannon" I seriously had to hold back from smacking him right in the face.
"Second home? The Far Frozen is my home. And stop calling me Shannon, its Spirit now, Shannon died in the car crash" I once again ignore that I revealed something else to the gang and their shocked look. Clockwork said nothing and instead stepped aside to show a screen. The image showed a room in a hospital. There was a girl on the bed, she was about my age, had dark brown hair with her eyes shut tightly. A heart monitor beeped next to her and on a table next to her was a set of glasses.
I squinted at the familiar looking girl before I realized that it was me. I approached the screen slowly and continued staring in shock at my human body, my living human body. My head sharply turned towards Clockwork giving him a pleading look, asking for answers.
"This is you, three weeks after the car accident. I caused the accident and brought you here causing your body to go into a coma until you return to it. Then I placed a portal that seemingly had opened on random knowing that you would push Ember out of the way and go to Amity Park allowing you to meet Danny and friends. I brought you here to complete one purpose and now it is done. It is time for you to return to your dimension Shannon"
"Are you kidding me? You're the reason I died? And now you expect me to go back to a life of feeling alone, of wondering if I would ever find someone I could actually trust? Do I even get a choice in this?" he shook his head and I screamed and turned away from him. I instead now faced Danny, Sam and Tucker whom I had forgotten were here.
"Please explain, I'm seriously lost here" says Tucker and Danny and Sam nodded in agreement and the three of them cross their arms and look at me.
"I'm originally from another dimension where you guys are a popular cartoon show. On the way back home from school there was an accident and I 'died' and was brought here which apparently is actually another dimension" I explain simply. They gave me looks thinking that I was joking but I was deadly, pun totally intended, serious about it.
"Time to go Shannon" I groaned. I looked back at Clockwork and sent him a pleading look. I didn't want to return to my old life. I loved it here. And if I left then I wouldn't be able to say goodbye to the tribe, dad, Vlad and Phoenix. They must be so worried… however I saw that he was not going to back down and if I did not agree willingly he was going to force me.
"It was nice meeting you guys at least," I smiled weakly at them, tears spilling slowly down my face, "it was nice knowing how having real friends was like." I wiped away the tears onto the palm of my gloved hand which turned out pointless since more tears just appeared. I choked on my sobs and took a deep breathe. I didn't want my adventure to end just like this. This was the best thing that ever happened to me. I never wanted it to end.
I shut my eyes and sniffled. Suddenly I felt two arms wrap around me and I stiffened in shock. I opened my eyes slowly and saw Sam hugging me. I was shocked beyond belief but slowly returned the hug and continued crying. The two guys joined and it became a group hug but I was a sobbing mess. Clockwork cleared his throat behind us ruining the moment and gestured towards the portal.
I wiped the remaining tears on my face and cast one last glance towards the gang. They waved and I waved back and stepped through the screen.
Everything became dark after that.