Chapter 13: Own Worst Enemy

8:30 AM

Garrett had entered the bunk room. He was about to roll his chair in when he saw Dan standing by the window looking out. He didn't feel comfortable. He had a hard guilt on his mind after what happened with his other self downstairs, especially after what he learned earlier that night not only about O'Leary's, but also himself. He was about to back his chair out when he heard Dan speak, him not turning to look at the man in the wheelchair, "Garrett, we need to talk."

He winced. Garrett was dreading this moment all night. The sheer anger Dan exuded was something he never saw in Dan before. Dan got angry, sure. He noticed, though, that when Lita was involved he became far more aggressive. Lita's first day being a Ghostbuster kept playing in his mind as he straight up threatened his life after insulting her. Right after Lita ran out and was kidnapped. Right after Dan brought her back... The glowing eyes…

He drew in a deep breath and began rolling in Dan's direction. He put his hands in his lap with his head down. He waited for Dan to start. He took his time doing so; the silence became unbearable. Yet, he stayed silent. He could hear Dan breathing, almost like he was attempting to keep his cool. He could feel how angry Dan was.

Dan started, a sigh beginning his conversation, "You and me need to come to an understanding," he turned to look at the man in the chair, "You're gonna stop this vendetta bullshit. Your grudges damn near got two people killed in the last 24 hours. After all of the shit you kept spouting about how I'm gonna get someone killed, you go and pull a stunt like this. Eavesdropping; committing conspiracy. Jesus Christ, Garrett, when would it have been enough? When I was dead?" Garrett's chest tightened like it did the night before last. When Roland removed Dan's Proton Pack to find smoking claw marks in his back Garrett had a moment where he regretted doing what he did to Dan and by extension Lita. He was realizing how much of a hazard he was becoming. He kept trying to convince himself Dan was still a danger; what he should have done was look in a mirror.

Dan looked back to Lita for a moment. Even though she was awake for only a few moments she had only been unconscious for a handful of hours. The time she needed to recover was going to be long. He couldn't help but see this as Garrett making the mother of all evil gestures…

"I donno what I can tell ya," Garrett still had his head down as he was shaking it, "I honestly thought you didn't care about us. All because you were an old rookie I felt like we were all being looked down upon. You got to work with the OGB's. You did stuff I could only dream of," he looked up to his superior, "You were a dyed-in-the-wool Chicago-boy walking in on our turf. I felt…" Garrett stalled as he tried to think of the words. Dan nodded, "Threatened?" Garrett was surprised. Dan knew the look on his face, "When I was starting out here - on the night of my first training job - Egon and the guys got in over their heads. I had to bring them back from some sort of in-between world a demon - using a human girl as a host - sent them to. I had to do it alone after Winston got tagged. I was pissed at them. After that when we went to Tokyo, Egon was scanning me in my sleep. I was having these horrible nightmares…"

Garrett motioned to Lita, "She was killed, wasn't she?"

Dan nodded, "You had one, too?" Garrett also nodded, "I saw Sailor Mars get grabbed by the throat and her neck broken. I was wearing a dark red suit of armor; I was crawling across the ground trying to reach her." "Jedite sent the challenge out into our dreams," Dan confirmed, "he wanted to take all of us out at once. Once he died and became free of Beryl's control he remembered the past. Even though he was free of the Negaverse's influence he still had a corrupted soul. That night…"

"You sacrificed yourself to save the remaining Scouts and the OGB's," Garrett concluded with a sigh, "after you believed Sailor Jupiter was dead. I was blind to it. Something in the back of my mind made me just… absolutely hate you, but I couldn't explain why." "It may lie in our Silver Millennium pasts. Whatever the case, Egon did something to me that trip that absolutely made me distrustful of him. He kept the fact that I was just discovering my power from me when he decided to experiment on me."

"What ya mean?" Garrett asked, confused.

"That very week, the girlfriend I had at the time, Jamie," Dan looked uncomfortable as he explained, "she dumped me for her father's cardiologist and lied to my landlord to get me evicted from my apartment. I had no choice but to move into the firehouse here." Garrett heard that and was worried. He nodded trying to beckon Dan to continue. He absolutely needed to know what Egon did. Dan continued, "While I slept and had my nightmares, Egon scanned me to see what was happening to me. At one point," Garrett watched as Dan clinched his fists and closed his eyes; he was clearly building with rage as he recalled it, "Lita had asked me about the dreams she was having as well. Because we were linked and didn't know it at the time, she saw what I saw. Because us Solar Knights have incognito powers that allow us to use our powers outside of our transformed state, it can be triggered by fear and anger. On the night we were to go out, Egon decided to actively antagonize me to see how I would react. He told me once the job was over, I was to be fired and evicted from the firehouse."

Garrett didn't believe it, "Wait, this is Egon we're talking about?"

Dan opened his eyes and looked Garrett directly into the soul, "I couldn't believe it either. Egon did it to see if I had an energy spike. From what Venkman and Zeddemore told me, Peter was ironing a shirt when his iron was pulled from his hand, and Winston was making dinner when the stove sailed across the kitchen. I was manipulating the EM field around me. All of us can do it." Garrett was getting confused, "I don't get it." Dan sighed as he explained, "I'm an electromancer; I can mess with electromagnetic fields. That's how I stopped the Draugr in Chelsea. Think Magneto from X-Men," That got through to Garrett, a look of understanding on his face. Dan continued, "Roland can freeze things; a cryomancer. He did it to a Man-Bat while protecting Sailor Mercury. Eduardo can heal people; his power was activated when he started having this dire need to talk to Mina. He healed the claw marks in my back. You… you start fires; you're a pyromancer."

It was starting to make sense to Garrett. One thing still confused him, "Why are you telling me this now?"

Dan looked conflicted. He knew he didn't have definitive proof of what he was about to tell him, but he knew from experience it was the reason why it all happened to begin with. He shook his head and marched ahead, "I know you said Roland told you about the diner fire." Garrett responded, "Yeah. He told me he was the one that hit the gas pipe. I guess you told him otherwise to save our friendship." Dan sighed, "No; that's not entirely true. It has a lot to do with something I noticed," Garrett cocked an eyebrow as he continued, "You see, Roland didn't hit the pipe long enough to weaken the pipe's metal at all. I'm the grandson of a welder; I know how much energy has to be absorbed into steel before it softens and it blows apart from gas pressure. Natural gas doesn't just explode out of the pipe in the presence of heat; it has to be mixed with oxygen for it to explode. Because our powers are activated by extreme fear or anger…"

"Stop!" Garrett said with a sense of panic in his voice, "You're not suggesting…"

Dan nodded again, "When you were hyperventilating in the refrigerator over your claustrophobia, you broadcasted your powers to the newly heated pipe and caused it to rupture." Garrett's eyes went wide as shock came over his face. He started looking around aimlessly in disbelief before putting his head into his hands. Dan finished, "There was a full two or three seconds from the beam no longer hitting the pipe to the pipe exploding. I knew something wasn't right. I was actually surprised Roland didn't catch that when it happened, but then again I was in the middle of knocking his Proton Gun away from the pipe. That might have distracted him from noticing. Nevertheless, Roland was blaming himself over the whole thing. I didn't even have it occur to me you might have been a Knight; Egon excluded the Scouts' energy patterns from the meters. Still, whatever caused the fire I knew it wasn't Roland's fault regardless. That's why I took the blame. Until I knew the truth I couldn't throw Roland under the bus. Now that I know…" he shrugged.

"It's my fault," Garrett raised his head and looked at Dan with glassed over eyes, "This whole thing is my fault! How can…?" He started to back his chair and began rolling out of the room when he felt his chair abruptly stop. He heard Dan growl out, "We're not done yet. You do not get to run out on this!" Dan had a firm grip on his chair's handles as he pulled him back and pointed him toward Lita on the bed, "Look at her! Look, goddamnit! That could have been Amy. Or Mina. It could have been Raye!" he spun him around to where they were facing each other, "Lita is laying there because she healed me. I was damn near dead when she did it. Yes, this was partially your fault! You need to change this vindictive behavior of yours and maybe - just maybe - forgive someone."

Garrett looked at the man before him. His guilt grew in size to the point he felt there was no way back. He went into his grudge - hard. He was protective of his town and he thought this nutjob was encroaching on his territory. Raye was right; Garrett was jealous of Dan. He was not only a leader of the Ghostbusters, but also of the Solar Knights. He had a seething disdain for Dan all because of the diner fire. Not only wasn't Dan responsible, Dan risked his life to save him. What he believed was a fact was all wrong. Looking back on the last 2+ years gave him pause. On the day he came to the firehouse to talk to Egon to remove Lita from the team and Janine told him he was being rash, he told Janine he was going to do something he wasn't known for. Dan almost lost his life multiple times in the last 3 days alone. He almost lost his chance to apologize. Granted, he didn't know to do so. Hindsight, and all. He looked to his lap in guilt, "Dan… I-I donno how I can apologize for this. I was blind by my own hatred of you…" "I don't want your apology, Miller." That scared Garrett. He looked back up and saw a stern look on his manager's face. He thought he was canned for sure…

"I told Egon on the night we met the Sailor Scouts that I wanted him to do something for me. He jerked me around to investigate what was happening to me. He emotionally wracked me like my father did. Yes, you were blind. I can't just simply forget what you did, but I know you're not evil, much like Egon. I'm gonna tell you what I told him: You wanna make it up to me? Don't you ever. Fucking. Do this again. Not to me; nobody. I need to trust you, Garrett," Dan stood up straight as he reached his hand out for him to shake, "Can I?"

Garrett looked at his leader's outreached hand. He had a hard decision to make…

9:00 AM

Now that everyone had some semblance of sleep Garrett and Eduardo were sent to get sleep themselves. In the lab Kylie, Egon, Janine, Dan and his counterpart, Roland, Darien, and Serena were looking at various computers. Kylie, Darien, and Serena were on her laptop, Dan and Egon were on Egon's main desktop, Janine had her computer brought up the stairs to use along with Roland, and the laptop in Old Man Dan's Ectomobile was brought in for his use. It was time to start researching the cult.

Checking around the internet they started looking into the concrete facility and looking into the people involved. Kylie was the first to find a lead, "I was afraid of this. The person in charge owns the facility. The other building they had Lita in looks like a fake company." Dan stood up and walked to Kylie's computer to see what she was looking at. There was a picture of a dark brown-haired woman with her hair in a short cut. It finally dawned on him, "Holy shit. I know who that is!" Serena was sitting beside Kylie to her right. She looked back at Dan, surprised, "How do you know her?" "That's what Lita meant! Goddamnit!"

Darien - who was beside Kylie on her left - also looked to Dan, "What did Lita tell you?"

"She told me this morning, 'it was the woman from Sardi's,'" the engineer began to pace as he tried to suppress his anxiety in an attempt to explain, "On Saturday I tried to take Lita to Sardi's. Show her a New York landmark, ya know? We sat down," he pointed at Kylie's laptop screen, "she was at the bar. She walked over and started rambling off information about me. I felt threatened. Now I know why she knew me; she knows we're a threat."

By this time Old Man Dan walked beside his younger self and took a look at the picture on the screen, "That's the cult leader?" "Yep," Kylie scrolled down to get more of the information for the cement company, "Holiday 'Holly' Jennifer Bautista. She apparently took over the company last year after a legal battle for ownership of the facility." Old Man Dan kept looking at Holly's pictures on the website Kylie was looking at. Something was very wrong with the pictures. No, it was more like Holly's facial expression. He felt something about her that made him… It reminded him of… "I'll dig into her background." With that the older Dan walked to his laptop and started his search.

"According to your statement," Egon announced out, "coinciding with other data and facts collected, they are in fact using a great deal of Norse mythology as a means of aiding in their goal. So said the men in the cloaks called this woman a, 'Gydje,' correct?" Dan turned back to Egon, "Yeah, that's what they called her right before they laid into me." Janine asked, "What's a, 'Guide-ya?'" Kylie answered, "It's a Norse priestess; usually associated with offering rituals and sacrifices to Norse Pegan gods."

Old Man Dan was on his own laptop going through various search results. Starting with news articles he found a news article that appeared to be slanted. The headline read Concrete Heiress Wins Back Company -Will She Make It Stronger, Or Will She Kill It Like Her Father? That was a really jarring title. Where he was from he saw article titles like that more often than not due to the political landscape. Reading the article it spoke of a shunning of some kind. He needed to learn more so he attempted to look up this accident they mentioned. Doing so he ran across an accident report dated as far back as mid 1992. He read it loud enough to himself so only he could hear it, "'...The car accident occurred at approximately 5:45 PM Friday evening. The driver - Jason Bautista, 41 - and his passenger - his daughter, 15 - were pulled from the wreckage by FDNY personnel. The driver was declared dead at the scene. The daughter is currently in serious condition with a head injury at Lenox Hill intensive care.' Jason Bautista…" He leaned back in his chair as he rubbed the unruly beard in thought. After a moment he leaned back forward and started entering the name into the search inquiry and began a new search.

It looked like he hit a weird level of paydirt. He found what looked like old IRC chat logs referring to the situation to the name. To him this looked like it was rather ancient, but he had to remember where he was and when he was. He started looking through them and found the name came up multiple times. It looked like a desperate conversation locked in the logs. He turned in his seat, "Hey, uh… uh…" he was trying to address Kylie but was trying to remember her name, "Kylie! What's the name of that cement company?"

Kylie stopped and tried to scroll back up, "Stoneface Masonry."

Old Dan turned back to his laptop and processed the information multiple times before realizing what was happening. Due to his - technically future - knowledge he knew how to use search engines more efficiently. He began going further down the rabbit hole to find out about Holly.

An hour later…

Old Dan looked distraught. He was looking through news articles, court documents, and other very disturbing bits of information. With Janine's help she was able to pull up Jason Bautista's coroner report. The autopsy revealed the reason for his death and it contradicted the news articles. Going through the court documents it looked like those pieces couldn't even be submitted as evidence due to the lack of relevance to the case. On top of that the case had to come to an end due to the defendants coming to an… unusual end themselves. He was seeing a pattern forming and he was not liking it.

He pulled up the picture of Holly again. There was something in that face that kept bothering him. It wasn't an evil face. It wasn't vindictive, disturbed, or enraged. It was sad. This woman looked so young; she was beautiful. What he knew of her past and what she was now trying to do, it was looking like she just wanted it all to end. Not because she was evil. If anything, Old Man Dan understood what it was she was trying to do and it wasn't something she wanted.

As time went on Serena looked over to the older Dan and kept seeing him put off very upsetting body language. Serena wasn't exactly the best at deciphering human behavior, but she could still see the good in people. He was moving around in his seat in a way that was making her think he was in some kind of agony as he was looking through the information. It was almost like he was getting angry at something. Even though Old Man Dan seemed a bit more unstable than the Dan she knew, it wasn't without cause.

Kylie interrupted her thoughts as she asked Dan something, "You said the guy's last name was, 'St. James'?" Dan looked from Egon's monitor and confirmed, "Yeah, that was all I caught between these… What'd you call 'em? Order of Asatro guys?" "Yeah. Matthew St. James. There isn't much on this guy." Dan walked back over and looked at the screen again to see the man's picture, "Yeah!" he said in an unnerved, excited voice, "That's the guy!" he looked at Kylie, "You can't find anything on him?" She shook her head, "According to this, he applied for a Social Security card on October 18, 1987. He has no place of residence; no driver's license; no place or date of birth"

Dan started to get leary, "Why does that sound like I've heard that before?"

Everyone heard a finger snap as Roland's voice projected out, "Buckaroo Banzai! It's just like the Red Lectroids!" Everyone looked at him strangely, turning in his seat to look around and see the faces. He rolled his eyes realizing he showed his geek again, "In the movie Buckaroo Banzai in the 8th Dimension, the aliens in the movie somehow ended up in Grover's Mill, New Jersey in 1938. The whole Orson Welles hoax wasn't a hoax in that movie."

Serena and Darien still didn't understand, questioning in unison, "Orson Welles?" "The War of the Worlds broadcast?" Roland saw they still didn't understand. He sighed, "I guess it's an American thing. Anyway, in that movie the alien enemy - Red Lectroids - were transported to a town in New Jersey on Halloween of 1938. Literally the next day they all applied for Social Security cards and founded a company called, 'Yoyodyne Propulsion.'"

Dan looked back to Kylie, "Does this guy have any other documents? Bank statements? School report cards? Sale receipts for gum? Anything at all?" Kylie shook her head, "The only thing other than the Social was a Green Card application submitted… uh…" she looked back through browser windows to find the right information, "September 18th, 1987."

Egon quickly looked away from his computer monitor, "What?!" She looked at her professor and saw the shocked look on his face. He quickly stood and walked beside Dan, almost pushing him out of the way. "No!" he exclaimed, "That has to be a coincidence!"

Dan steadied himself and looked at Egon. His sudden exacerbation was… near uncharacteristic. It was like a horrible realization came to him. Dan looked back and forth between Kylie's laptop screen and his superior, "What? What's so significant about that date, Spengs?"

"That was two days after Jeremy attempted to destroy the world," Dan now understood why Egon was so eager about the information, "It isn't common for a person who shows up just days after a worldwide cataclysm only to be working with someone who's attempting to do it all over again."

"He may be onto something," Old Man Dan left his chair and approached closer to Kylie's laptop as he looked at his other self, "It may be possible this guy's the real culprit. There's no background on him, no point of origin…"

Dan stopped himself, "Look, the guy creeps me out. I'll admit, there's something not right with the guy and I'd like to be a million miles away from him, but this Bautista woman is nuts. She was so drunk at Sardi's she spilled all she knew on me. She's probably a stone-cold calculative sociopath otherwise." Dan saw his other-dimensional counterpart and saw the look on his face. He was skeptical of his statement as he asked, "You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?" That made Dan angry, "Oh, no, I don't know what I'm talking about; I just had her reveal that she's been collecting data on me and everyone else in this building then order her goons to beat me and leave me for dead after kidnapping my girlfriend! Sure, I'm pretty fucking clueless!"

The older man replied, "I'm not trying to insult anyone here, but I have the most experience in this place. Why wouldn't you trust my judgment on this?"

"Right after you kicked Garrett in the chest and I told you to not hurt any more of my crew, you go off and play Duck Hunt with one of our allies!" Dan wasn't having it, "Give me a good goddamn reason to even entertain this idea!"

There was that look again. Serena saw it on Old Man Dan's face as he narrowed his eyes toward himself, "Have you made a mistake so bad your enemies used it to their advantage to make everyone perceive you as a monster, and no matter what you're to never be forgiven? Depending on who you are, do you work harder to prove the good in you despite your mistakes? Prove it even though you enemies would never concede? Or do you become the monster they want you to be to make them regret their efforts even though that proves them right?"

Without speaking to his other self Dan looked at Egon and Kylie, "Am I always this goddamn cryptic?" Egon and Kylie hung their mouths open as if to say something, then stopped to look at each other as if to gauge from one another to even say it. Dan clearly saw that and knew what they were doing, giving him the answer he needed. He facepalmed before turning back to his other self, "Face it, these people are loons. This woman killed one person we can absolutely confirm and another that's possibly linked to this bullshit. She also likely attacked Issac Hacker and turned him into one of those mutants. Then there's the destruction, the Draugrs, damn near killing me and Lita, and two Stanzas played. She's A-1 evil. We need to figure out how to stop her and her creepy lil' friend, or you can kiss this world and your's goodbye."

"That's why I'm trying to tell you, you dolt!" Old Dan bellowed, "We could stop this peacefully if you just hear me out!"

Dan hunched over Kylie's shoulder and railroaded Old Man Dan's objection, "I'm not listening to a fuckin' psycho. You're likely gonna get us killed." Serena and Kylie looked back to Dan horrified after he uttered those words.

That was it, "Fine," the old man said indignatly, "Fuck you. Fuck all of you," he walked to his laptop and closed it up taking the cords and all, "I hope all of you die in a massive explosion!" He marched out of the lab. Serena stood up and followed behind him a short distance, "Wait, Dan!" He ignored her. He walked out of the lab and down the stairs, disappearing to the ground floor.

Kylie turned her seat around and growled at him, "What in the hell is the matter with you?"

"You just did the same thing Garrett was doing to you," Roland also objected to Dan's response to the matter, "Why would you do something that cold?" Dan stood back up straight, "That man is not right. I saw what we were dealing with. He's been here for, what? Not even a full twelve hours yet? He's a danger to himself and everyone here."

Serena turned from the door and stared the man in the eye, "What you did to him wasn't fair to him! He's trying to help." He looked in the young woman's eyes and saw how upset it made her. If there was anyone he could trust in giving him real criticism it was Serena. He did feel a bit of guilt welling in his chest, but he knew something else was not right. What exactly, he wasn't outright sure, but he did hear him last night, "Someone was taken from him. He might not be as level as he looks. Like he said to me last night, we may have the same identity, but we don't have the same experiences. We need to relegate him to the background until we know he isn't gonna go full berserk on us. We need to watch his intentions closely until we can be sure to trust him to stay under control."

"As much as I agree with you, Daniel," Egon stated as he crossed his arms across his chest, "I do agree with what Serena said as well. There are better ways than how you presented the solution. Antagonizing him while he's attempting to be a help all while he's away from his home is already hard enough for him."

"He's right, Dan," Darien turned in his chair to also look up, "There's no need to be your own worst enemy."

"Good God, Darien," Dan rolled his eyes, "Who the hell writes your dialog? Tony Robbins?"

Serena looked back where the older Dan went as thought about what he was saying. It looked like he learned the truth about their enemy that maybe gave him an insight. That said, she started to think of what Dan said about his other self. She was now worrying about Old Man Dan's heart and his past. She could tell there was a hard loneliness placed onto him. It reminded her of what her Dan did this morning beside Lita's bed and when he was helping her with the glass in her finger. They almost had the same experiences.

7 years ago on the roof of the tower she witnessed Sailor Jupiter killed. Dan was wearing an experimental flight-based Proton Pack that had an addition Egon and Ray didn't install: a remote trap hidden behind the pack frame. Jedite fooled all of them by kidnapping Sailor Jupiter and replacing her with a Doppleganger that was meant to infiltrate the group. It got a hold of the pack and fired at Dan. When it looked like he was cornered, Dan activated the hidden trap and captured the Doppleganger.

Infuriated Jedite fired an energy ball at the real Sailor Jupiter who was restrained and hanging from a broadcast tower on the roof. The next thing she saw after being restrained with the other Scouts and the Original Ghostbusters was an extremely angry Solar Knight emerging from behind the radio tower. If this other universe's version of Dan wasn't being hyperbolic about a woman he loved, Old Man Dan would be what would happen if Lita didn't survive that night. But still, there was something more…

And she was going to find out what.