A/N Hey everyone, I'm back for the next chapter and I did manage to get it finished and up at my regular scheduled time. Seems I'm still keeping up with my plan for now, but we'll see if I'm able to maintain that pace in the future as the story is coming to a close. There's quite a bit of conflict and action coming and I hope you all love it. Please enjoy and as always remember to leave a REVIEW!
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Tucker had the speeder flying as fast as it possibly could straight for Wisconsin, using the map and compass on the control panel to make sure he was heading in the right direction, along with Jazz's guidance since she was the only one present that had been to Vlad's mansion before.
"Okay, at this speed and going in a staight line we should be able to arrive in about an hour or so," said Tucker looking at his watch and doing some rough calculations in his head. "Hopefully when we get there Danny will still be in one piece and okay."
Ember was clutching her fists tightly and staring straight at the ground in front of her.
"He will be, he just has to be, there's no way I will allow this world to take him away after I waited so long to find him," said Ember fiercely from the back of the speeder.
Jazz looked over her shoulder in support along with Kitty.
"Don't worry, we'll all find and save him together, and then we'll make sure that creep gets the message to never come near any of us again," said Jazz with a serious expression. Kitty nodded in agreement.
With her fists still clenched, Ember started lightly pounding them against her legs as she sat down.
"Oh he's going to get the message alright. Apparently me almost disfiguring his face in Alabama wasn't enough, so this time I'll make sure the damage is permanent," said Ember through gritted teeth.
Sam nodded, wanting to get some punches in on that fruit loop as well.
"Just make sure you leave a little bit for me, should be plenty to go around," said Sam, keeping the ghost gauntlets close by. Ember looked up at her and gave a slight nod.
"Assuming there's anything left by the time I'm done with him you can absolutely take a few shots, he deserves every last bit of pain that's coming his way," said Ember looking up at the ceiling. "There's no way I'll let him make Danny a full ghost. Even if it could solve a problem I recently discovered, that's not happening."
Everyone other than Kitty suddenly took notice of Ember's words, looking at her in confusion.
"What do you mean Danny becoming a full ghost would solve a big problem?" said Jazz raising an eyebrow, not liking the thought of that at all, whatever it was.
Ember hadn't really been thinking when she said that, her mind being somewhat on autopilot for the last couple hours. But now that she'd let that slip she figured she'd have to explain since the mention of Danny as a full ghost wasn't something they were likely to just brush off.
"I...I recently came to the realization that since Danny is only a half ghost and I'm a full ghost...I can't grow up with him," said Ember softly, not liking that this had to come up now of all times. She already was terrified of this knowledge before Skulker took him, now it was a whole new level of confusing. "I don't age as a ghost, so as Danny eventually gets older, I'm worried what it could mean for our relationship. He might realize that when he's an adult and I still look like this, he'll eventually have to break up with me as a result."
Kitty had already heard all of this and knew about Ember's concern for it, but none of the other's had any thoughts of this until now. And just like when Ember realized it, now that it was out there it was making all of them process the whole idea in their minds. It wasn't exactly a typical problem an average couple would have to deal with such as deciding what to have for dinner any given night or what movie to go see at the theater.
"That...oh wow, that's something I had never even thought of," said Jazz looking down as she tried to process these thoughts. "I mean I've known about the two of you for a while, but that thought never once come to mind."
Tucker was watching the horizon in front of him again, but also was trying to wrap his mind around this new information.
"Well, maybe Danny will be thrilled at the idea of you always looking young and beautiful," Tucker offered, not sure what else to say.
"Already pointed that out when she talked about it to me lover boy," said Kitty while looking around Jazz towards Tucker. "It wasn't exactly a comforting thought since real life relationships aren't as easy as the fake fantasies in your head."
Tucker looked over at Kitty and looked offended, even though he had no right to be.
"Hey, I'll have you know that my three girlfriends from my dreams would disagree with you, making sure all of them get equal attention is very difficult," said Tucker, which only resulted in him getting disapproving looks form all the girls. He noticed all the eyes now on him and looked back to the horizon quickly. "Um, but that's not important right now, we're discussing Ember and Danny's relationship."
Ember was shaking her head in the back for a moment before leaning her back against the wall of the speeder. Sam meanwhile was wrestling with her own thoughts on the matter.
'Danny might just simply outgrow her if I wait. Then maybe he and I could be together once I tell him how I feel,' thought Sam in her head. She was feeling a bit guilty thinking these thoughts after she and Ember had finally started to come to small understanding, but she couldn't help it. 'But...as much as I want to be with him, can I really be so selfish to hope for something that he would hate? Maybe he'd eventually get over it and then I'd be in the clear? But...Jazz was right, I should want him to be happy, and hoping for something like that is...ahhhhhhh, this is so confusing.'
Sam tried to shake these confusing thoughts, not wanting to think about all that right now when they still had to actually find and save Danny from the fruit loop.
"Hey, right now we just need to focus on finding and getting Danny back. Everything else isn't important right now, so let's just focus on that," said Sam, trying to keep the suspicious look off her face. She had no idea how she'd deal with or handle this new realization, but for now it was irrelevant.
Jazz looked back at Ember and nodded her head.
"Right, whatever complications there are we'll deal with them afterwards, and you definitely have me on your side to help you with anything," said Jazz smiling. "Danny has never been happier than he's been with you so I'm not going to let some trivial matter get in the way of that."
Ember smiled back at Jazz, feeling so bizarre to be receiving so much support from someone after she never had any when she was alive. Danny was the first to ever make her feel special, and now Jazz was adding onto that feeling and it felt so amazing.
"Thanks Jazz, and I truly cannot express how much that means to me," said Ember smiling at the girl she suddenly found herself hoping would one day become her sister in law. She'd had thoughts of marrying Danny before someday, and now she was adding a whole new element to that.
"Don't worry Ember, we're moving as fast as we can and we'll be there soon," said Tucker as the speeder kept zooming north in the sky.
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Plasmius was leaning over Ember's guitar like a mad scientist as he tinkered with it, having been at it for a while now ever since he woke up that morning. And he felt like he was about ready to test it out. Closing it up and screwing it shut he picked it up and strapped it on.
"Well now Daniel, I'd say that quite a bit of improvement has been done to your girlfriend's favorite toy wouldn't you?" said Plasmius holding it up for Danny to see.
Since he was still strapped down all Danny could do was turn his head a little bit, and he felt disgusted at what he was looking at. Only Ember should be allowed to hold and wield that guitar, seeing his arch enemy not only hold it but also flaunt what he did to it fueled him with anger.
"When she gets that guitar back nothing will be able to save you from her fury, and believe me her fury will be bigger than your ego, which is bigger than this mansion," said Danny roughly. He was getting so sick of having to listen to Plasmius's cocky voice, to the point that he wanted to cut his ears off.
"Oh come now Daniel, I'd have to say the color change looks much more fitting than before, in addition to it's enhancements," said Plasmius as he ran his hand over the body of the guitar while smirking.
Rather than it's usual purple color with blue flames, the guitar now sported a more white color with red trim to represent Plasmius's color scheme much more.
"The only thing that color makes me want to do is stick needles in my eyes" said Danny frowning. "I don't care what you did to it, you'll never be able to work it as well as Ember."
Plasmius started walking out the door but stopped to look back at Danny again.
"Oh don't you worry about that little badger, I'm sure you'll be able to get a taste of it soon enough once I finish testing it out on a few of my other minions, I actually think you'll enjoy the effects once you feel them," said Plasmius.
Danny gritted his teeth and sneered as Plasmius walked out of the room. He wondered where he was going since he was walking in a different direction than the room where he'd shown him his clone and the other failed attempts. He's pretty sure that roaring he kept occasionally hearing was coming from the direction he went instead.
Once Plasmius got to the door he was heading to he entered his code so it would open, stepping inside.
"Hello again to all of you, enjoying the ecto restrictive room are we?" he asked smiling. "I'm sorry that I had to keep you in here in a room that you can't faze out of, but I come with gifts for keeping you here for so long. So how about a taste of some real power."
Plasmius sported a big grin as he strummed the guitar three times, causing it to shoot some kind of ghostly wave that hit all three of the figures in the room.
ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
It was the loudest roar yet and since the door was still open Danny heard it even clearer, shivering a bit and getting goosebumps. He had no idea what was making such a terrifying roar, but he was pretty sure whenever Ember showed up she was going to have to face it. He just hoped she'd be okay and would be able to free him so he could help.
What Danny couldn't see however were Plasmius's vultures flying through the house looking for him, fazing through the ceiling of the room he was currently in with his other minions.
"Lord Plasmius sir, we come with dire news," said the one in the middle. But once they realized who was in the room with him they all shrieked and almost flew right back away.
"What is so dire, I'm working on important matters in here," said Plasmius who didn't seem worried one bit about the vultures possibly getting attacked.
We spotted a flying object heading this way rather fast, we believe it to be the friends of your young captive," said the head vulture, all three of them keeping their eyes on the beasts beneath them.
Plasmius simply smiled, actually delighted that Daniel's friends and most likely girlfriend were coming. For whatever reason it seemed Skulker hadn't completed his task.
"How wonderful, now I'll get to finish off dear Ember myself along with the rest of those insufferable kids," said Plasmius while grinning. "I almost feel grateful that Skulker didn't succeed, even though it has caused a bit of an inconvenience to me and a slight risk to my plans. But this should make it so much more fun."
"Should we attempt to stop the humans and whoever else may be with them master?" asked another of the vultures, all three of them seemed pretty eager to leave the room. Plasmius looked at them with a frown.
"The three of you failed at simply finding and pecking Jack to death, you're barely even good enough to be considered pawns in this chess game," said Plasmius while looking from the vultures to the other's in the room. "I'll be sending a rook, a bishop, and a knight to handle Daniel's friends while I, the king, wait here to observe."
The vultures looked very hesitant to go anywhere other than the opposite direction of where the humans were right now. But Plasmius, while still holding Ember's guitar, gave his orders.
"All of you, go now and destroy Daniel's friends, by any mean necessary," said Plasmius while gesturing in the direction of the front door through the walls. All six figures at that moment charged through the air, fazing out of the lab and heading for the front of the mansion.
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Ever since they'd crossed over the Wisconsin state border, everyone had been eagerly watching the horizon for the mansion to come into view. And they were now on their final approach as Tucker lowered the speeder a little closer to the ground to see better. Suddenly Jazz raised her hand and was pointing sharply.
"There, that's it, that's the mansion," said Jazz, recognizing the huge establishment from her parents college reunion months ago. It wasn't exactly a house one easily forgets considering it was bigger than some neighborhoods.
Ember's eyes lit up with flames as she zeroed in on where jazz was pointing. The boy she loves was somewhere down there and she was ready to bust him free while causing as much pain as possible to the one that had him taken.
"No time to be subtle, land this thing and let's get in there," said Ember fiercely. She was about to reach for her guitar on instinct, but once again remembered that she didn't currently have it. "Ugh, also I need to get my guitar back and smack it over that slimeball's head."
Tucker steered the speeder towards the ground and leveled it out, flying right towards the front door. Stopping outside in the parking lot sized driveway, everyone grabbed their respective weapons and ran out of the speeder towards the front door.
"Screw knocking, I'm blasting and entering," said Ember as she charged right at the door. She didn't even bother fazing through it, firing a pink ecto beam right at it and blowing it to smitherines so everyone could rush right inside.
Once inside, everyone stopped in the main foyer to try to figure out which way they should check.
"This place is so huge, where should we even start, and knowing what a sinister prick Plasmius is he probably already knows we're here," said Sam while clenching her fists inside the gauntlets, wanting to punch everything in sight right now.
"Should we split up to cover more ground or go by strength in number?" asked Kitty, thinking there was a little too much green and gold decor along with all the cheese figurines.
Before anyone could answer three figures were fazing into the room from the floor and flying in front of them.
"If you humans are smart you'll definitely stick together, for all of you will be begging for your lives at the feet of master Plasmius before this is over," said the center vulture. "But for now we'll enjoy watching you struggle for your lives."
None of the rescue party seemed worried, in fact they looked somewhat disappointed.
"You're telling me that the three of you are all that were sent to meet us?" said Tucker gesturing towards the vultures unamused.
"Is your master seriously that much of a chicken shit that he couldn't even bother to come face us himself?" said Kitty frowning and posing for combat.
Ember however wasn't in any mood to be trading witty banter, her eyes were fired up as she stepped forward.
"Enough of this shit, WHERE'S DANNY?" screamed Ember violently at the vultures. "PLASMIUS, GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE SO I CAN KICK IT ALL THE WAY TO THE MOON!"
The vultures just flew a little higher and backed up a little bit from Ember, actually a little intimidated by her fury and raging hair that was lighting up the whole room.
"Oh you are all mistaken, it is not just the three of us, it's really these other three that you need to worry about," said the right vulture.
Everyone else now looked confused as they glanced all around trying to figure out what they were talking about.
ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
The entire room shook a little from the ear splitting roar, everyone suddenly freezing where they stood from the unexpected terror. Suddenly, without warning, three more much larger figures were fazing into the room in front of the vultures to confront the rescue party. Everyone's mouth suddenly dropped as they jumped backwards. Before them now stood a lion, a tiger, and a bear ghost. And all three looked very familiar to certain individuals present.
"That...that's the lion ghost that attacked the movie theater a few months ago," said Sam with wide eyes. But the fact that the same lion ghost was here wasn't the main takeaway. "But now it's bigger, and so much uglier."
The lion ghost hardly even represented a lion anymore. It was now quite horrifying looking and rather than four legs it was more of lion humanoid with super buff muscles and a terrifyingly sharp mane. It was definitely not a warm and snuggly bunch of hair around it's face anymore.
"And that's the tiger ghost that attacked Danny and myself on the night of our first date," said Ember looking at the ghost in the middle. "But just like you said, it's way uglier and bigger now. Last time I saw it it was just a simple tiger, before I pounded it into a pulp that is."
Tucker looked terrified as he held his rod, his arms shaking a little bit.
"Yeah well, looks like it's come back for round two, and I don't think it's going to go down as easily as it did when Danny told me about that incident," said Tucker while stepping a bit more behind Ember.
"Yeah, um, I don't think either of them will be as bad as Winnie the Pooh's overgrown brother here guys," said Jazz while looking up and stepping back. Sam and Ember looked at the last ghost and looked at each other in realization before speaking.
"That's the bear ghost that was attacking Danny when we were in Alabama," said Ember, the only one that didn't seem to be backing down. Even Kitty was slowly taking a step back from the three giant mutated animal ghosts that were now oversized humanoid body builders.
"So, so you're telling me we have to fight a lion, a tiger, and a bear ghost that have been mutated?" said Jazz hesitantly, not at all excited where this was going. "Oh my."
"I don't care if we have to fight an army of mutated dinosaurs, Danny is here somewhere and we're getting him back," said Ember while staring down all six obstacles in her way. "Plasmius can play Wizard of Oz all he wants, in that case I'll just throw a bucket of water on the wicked witch of the west.
Sam stepped forward and stood beside her, punching the gauntlets together and nodding.
"GET THEM," shouted Sam as she and Ember charged forward to engage the ghosts in combat.
Sam and Ember were charging at separate ghosts, Sam the lion and Ember the tiger, who seemed to be zeroed in on her after what happened the last time they met. This left Kitty, Jazz, and Tucker to take on the fifteen foot tall bear ghost together. The vultures retreated backwards, flying in place towards the ceiling to watch what happened.
"Oh boy, what I wouldn't give to have you be Bearbert instead right now," said Jazz as she raised her bazooka and fired it right at the ghost. Unfortunately it had no effect as it raised it's giant paw and swatted the blast away.
Kitty and Tucker both rushed forward hesitantly to join her, Tucker swinging out wide with the rod and Kitty flying up high to prepare a kiss.
"I really hope this bear is a male," said Kitty as she brought her hand to her lips and puckered up. Placing a smooch into her palm, she blew it right at the bear.
The bear swung at the kiss and as soon as it made contact Kitty's power went into effect. A bright flash grew where the contact was made, but upon the initial flash nothing else happened. The bear looked as if it hadn't even felt anything. Moving forward the bear then took a swipe at Kitty, who barely managed to dodge it by flying up higher and out of it's swinging range.
"Looks like we're unfortunately dealing with a giant mama bear," said Jazz while rolling to her side before the bear could trample her.
Tucker raised his rod once he managed to get behind the bear and swung at it's feet, making it stumble a little bit but mostly having little impact. As soon as the bear realized what had happened, it turned around and aimed a swing of it's paw right at Tucker, who was up close and personal and didn't have enough time to dodge.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH," shouted Tucker as he closed his eyes and covered his face. But right before the bear could smack him away like a rag doll, Kitty flew right at him and lifted him into the air, out of harms way.
"Guys we're not getting anywhere fast this way, we need to think of something smarter," said Kitty while carrying Tucker.
The bear ghost was reaching towards Kitty in midair, trying to swipe it's huge paws at her. As Kitty flew up higher, the bear ghost was about to fly after her. But once it got a few feet off the ground, Jazz had fired her bazooka again and hit it right in the side of it's body. Though the impact was minimal it was still enough to draw it's attention and divert it's attacks.
Jazz was now the one that was frozen and staring right at a giant furry monster charging right at her. Firing a few more times and aiming for it's face, she ended up getting a good shot, hitting the bear right in the eyes before it could get her. This blinded it and made it crash into the ground, giving Jazz the opportunity to roll away once again to reposition herself.
Meanwhile, off to the side Sam was trading blows with the lion ghost, their fists connecting again and again as they were locked in what was basically a boxing match. Sam's impressive athletic ability that everyone always seemed to forget she had, along with the enhanced strength of the gauntlets helped her keep up with the lion that was twice her size.
"I remember when you showed up at that movie theater and ruined the moment when Danny and I were holding hands," said Sam furiously, letting all thought of what she was saying go completely unfiltered. "You ruined one of the most special moments of my entire life, and now I finally get to break your face for it."
Ember, a bit to the side and fighting the tiger ghost, overheard Sam's confession and looked to the side after landing a kick on the tiger to send it backwards.
"What? What do you mean you and Danny were holding hands at the movies?" demanded Ember, taking a quick glance at Sam before reengaging with the tiger.
Sam ducked a hook from the lion, sidestepping it and punching it in the hip as hard as she could. She now realized she had just blurted her words out without thinking them through. Now Ember was looking at her and didn't look happy about it.
"Well, Danny and I kinda went to the movies together a few months ago, to my knowledge before the two of you were together," said Sam while raising her fists to block a jab from the lion, stumbling back a bit from it's brute strength. If not for the gauntlets she'd have been sent flying away like a baseball. "I kinda withheld certain information so that it would be just the two of us as kind of a test date to see if he could have feelings about me. While the movie was going on I took a chance and held his hand, and he didn't pull away. Before I could test anything else this lion showed up and ruined it, making Danny flee to fight it."
Ember dodged another swipe of the tiger's claws, limboing underneath before rising back up to swing a hard uppercut at it's chin, sending it flying high into the air and crashing into the ceiling.
"Wait a minute, was that the night Danny and I first kissed and confessed that we wanted to be together, because I remember you calling for him outside in the street while we were on the roof together?" said Ember while taking another look at Sam, frowning a little bit.
Sam blocked two consecutive punches before swooping under a third and aiming a hand chop right at the lion's shins, making it topple over a bit. This gave Sam an opening to land her own hard uppercut right in the lion's face and send it flying back to crash into the wall.
"That's where he disappeared to? I knew he was lying about just going home to release the lion back to the ghost zone, but I didn't know that he was making out with you on the nearby roof," said Sam, feeling so much jealously rush through her body again now that she knew what had actually happened that night.
The tiger flew back down from the ceiling at Ember, raising both it's paws towards her. Ember thought it was about to try to scratch her up, but she got a surprise when instead two ecto beams were suddenly fired at her, one from each paw. She didn't react in time to dodge or block, and ended up taking the full weight of the blast and crashed into the ground, cracking the hardwood floors.
"Ugh, ouch," said Ember slowly getting back to her feet, looking up as the tiger was coming in for another attack. Concentrating her focus on her hair, it blazed up like a wildfire and she blasted a wave of flames right at the charging jungle cat. Making a clean hit, the tiger fell to the ground and started rolling around to try to extinguish the flames that were now burning it's fur.
While Sam kept trading blows with the lion, she saw Ember get blasted and then return fire with her own fire. When she heard the tiger crash to the ground and start to roll around she got momentarily distracted, leaving herself open for the lion to swing it's mighty paw at her in a rough hook. Connecting with her side Sam was sent flying right at Ember, causing the two girls to crash into each other on the ground. Sam was laying sideways on top of Ember when they stopped rolling.
"Hey hippie, I think we're both finding out some stuff right now neither of us like, but can we put yelling at each other on hold until we don't have overgrown petting zoo animals trying to maul us?" said Ember as she lightly pushed Sam off of her.
Before Sam could answer the tiger ghost came charging back at them, aiming for Ember's face with it's claws. Dodging and grabbing the paws before it could regain it's balance, Sam took the opening to punch the tiger right in the face with full force. This sent the tiger flying away like a missle into the wall, crashing right through it and leaving a ten foot wide hole. Seconds later the lion was charging for Sam. Intentionally falling to her back, Sam grabbed both of the lion's paws herself to hold it in place for a few moments. This gave Ember the opening to quickly position herself right in front of the lion and blast it right in the face at point blank range, sending it through the wall as well right after the tiger. Sam started breathing deep, feeling pretty drained now that she had a moment to recollect herself and come down from the adrenaline high she'd been on.
"Good...job," said Sam through deep breaths, looking at Ember.
Ember looked back at Sam, not breathing hard like her since she was a ghost that didn't have lungs, but still felt pretty worked up.
"You too," said Ember simply nodding back, amazed that the two of them seemed to be able to fight so well together considering they once fought each other so fiercely.
"Hello, excuse me, any chance we could get a hand over here?" called the panicked voice of Tucker as himself, Jazz, and Kitty were still struggling with the house sized bear ghost.
Ember was about to charge forward and assist, but Sam reached forward and grabbed her shoulder before she could.
"I got this, you go find Plasmius and Danny," said Sam, stunning Ember with her words. Sam could see the hesitation in Ember considering she was the one telling her to go find Danny rather than doing it herself. "It's okay, I'll help them. I want to find and save Danny just as much as you, and as soon as we take care of Bear Kong here we'll come help you. You can move through this place faster than me since you're a ghost, and I'll bet my whole belief system Plasmius has him somewhere underneath this house like a total cliche. Go find and save him."
Sam and Ember locked eyes for a moment, Ember actually expecting some kind of double cross or something. But as she looked back, all she could see was sincerity. As much as Sam did want to find and save Danny, she really did believe what she was saying that Ember would be able to do it faster and better.
"Alright, don't let that thing turn you into honey cakes or anything, be safe," said Ember as Sam took her arm off her shoulder.
Nodding to each other, Sam charged towards the bear while Ember went intangible and flew down into the floor to hopefully find Danny.
While the bear was trying to swipe at Kitty in midair while Jazz and Tucker were swinging or shooting at it's legs, Sam was charging from behind it at full sprint.
"KITTY, DOWN HERE," shouted Sam through the bear, drawing Kitty's attention.
Kitty looked down and saw Sam sprinting towards them between the bear's legs. Realizing what she was up to, she dove straight down under another swing. Landing on the ground she readied her hands in a boosting position. Sam jumped up, her foot landing in both of Kitty's hands so Kitty could launch her straight into the air. With a pure iron fist, Sam clutched her right hand tightly and swung the hardest punch of her life right at the giant bear's chin, using the momentum from being launched to amplify the force of her punch tenfold. Before the bear even saw it coming, it's head was being snapped straight up from the punch and was suddenly falling backwards. Landing on it's back with so much force that the mansion gave another little shake, Sam was caught by Kitty before she could hit the ground and all four fighters stood next to each other.
"Are you all okay?" asked Sam looking back and forth at everyone.
"We're still alive, no offense Kitty," said Tucker while crouching over and holding his knees. He'd been using strength that he didn't even know he had to avoid being mauled by the bear.
"None taken, but where's Ember?" asked Kitty realizing that her best friend wasn't present.
"She went to find Danny, I told her we'd handle these pests," said Sam, realizing that the bear was getting back up, and that the lion and tiger had come back from the hole in the wall to rejoin the fight.
"Um, I'm not so sure how we're going to take all three of them without her," said Jazz in a scared voice. "The Fenton Bazooka hasn't really been doing any good."
"Then forget that thing and use the Fenton Peeler," said Sam as if it should have been obvious. "What did you bring it for if you weren't going to use it."
Jazz's eyes shot open as she remembered she still had a second weapon. After it hadn't done anything to Skulker, that weapon had taken a backseat since the Fenton Bazooka had actually done some damage to him. But it was having the opposite effect in this fight.
"Get that thing out and use it, peel these mutated jungle freaks down," said Sam rapidly as the ghosts were on the attack, the bear having gotten back to it's feel now and was roaring loudly.
Strapping the Fenton Bazooka to her back, Jazz pulled the Fenton Peeler off of her hip and held it out, pushing the button to activate it. Once the full body suit had formed around her, she raised her fist and fired the blast, hitting the tiger ghost directly. As the striped humanoid ghost was engulfed by the power of the peeler, it's effects suddenly started to take effect just like it had done to Spectra the first time she used it. The tiger started to get peeled down one later at a time. Every layer made it seem like the clock was going backwards for the tiger, going from a humanoid tiger ghost all the way down to an adorable baby tiger that looked like it just wanted to cuddle. Before long the tiger was smiling happily with it's tongue out and looking like it wanted to be picked up and cuddled. It seemed more like a playful dog now that a deadly jungle cat.
"Um, wow, that's different, and they call me Kitty," said Kitty as everyone, even the other two ghosts, had stopped to look at the now adorable baby tiger ghost that was jumping around happily.
The lion ghost was suddenly looking more interested in attacking the baby tiger than the others, raising it's giant paws to swipe at it while the bear was once again attacking the heroes.
"Hey, pick on someone your own size ," said Tucker, charging forward around the bear to grab the baby tiger and roll out of the way before the lion could brutalize it. Quickly setting the baby tiger down, Tucker drew his Fenton Rod again and ducked underneath the lion's punch, swinging hard at it's stomach and sending it flying up into the air. Tucker was amazed himself at what he'd just done.
The baby tiger looked so happy that Tucker had come to it's aide after the lion was launched that it jumped up into his arms and nuzzled him, laying comfortably against his chest. Despite trying to contain and avoid being hit by the bear ghost, all the girls had seen what Tucker had done and were pretty amazed.
"Wow, Tucker how did you do that?" called Jazz as she tried to blast the bear just like she had the tiger, but was finding it more difficult due to it's much larger size and attacks.
"I have no idea, I just saw this adorable little guy about to be attacked and for some reason couldn't let that happen," said Tucker while smiling and starting to rub the tiger's head, which it was enjoying immensely.
"Well cuddle with your new pet later, in case you forgot there's a house sized bear here," said Sam, just barely avoiding being stomped on by the bear's foot.
Everyone was either trying to blast or punch the bear in some way as they maneuvered around it, Kitty in the air, Sam and Jazz on the ground. Sam kept trying to punch at it but it was too tall for her to land an effective hit now that it's guard was up on her. Jazz kept trying to use the peeler and strip it's form like she had the tiger but having to keep dodging it's swipes kept her from being able to get a clean shot. Kitty was staying in the air and tried to fire blasts at it, but they weren't big enough to cause any serious damage. As the bear swung again at Kitty, she attempted to dodge again but this time didn't move quick enough. She got clipped on the head which sent her flipping downward towards the ground, crashing into Jazz hard. Both girls were now tangled on the ground, leaving Sam fending for herself for a moment. The bear was able to put all it's attention on her as a result and swung it's paw against the ground in a sweeping motion, leaving Sam without any room to dodge. All she could do was raise both of her fists with the gauntlets to limit the impact. Absorbing the blow Sam was sent through the air and crashed right into Jazz and Kitty as they were both getting to their feet, sending them right back to the ground in pain.
"Ugh, my back," groaned Jazz, feeling uncomfortable in the peeler suit with the other two girls on top of her.
"Get up get up get up, it's coming again," said Sam pulling herself to her feet along with Kitty. Both girls took Jazz by the arms and hauled her to her feet, but the bear was basically about to body slam all of them.
"Hey fur ball, catch this," called Tucker from behind the bear with the tiger cub ghost right beside it. Tucker had thrown the Fenton Rod at the bear's head, hitting the side of it's face with it. Though the ecto properties of the rod stung the bear for a moment, it didn't really stop it in any way as it was now turning to face Tucker. "Oh, ok, did not think that one thought."
Tucker started backing up as the bear advanced on him, about to squish him like a bug under it's foot. But before it could, out of nowhere the tiger cub ghost had flown into the air and latched itself against the bear's face, growling fiercely and starting to scratch it's claws wherever it could make contact. The bear starting squealing in pain from the scratching and reached up to try to smack the cub away, but before it could it took two scratches right to it's eyes, blinding the raging humanoid ghost.
"Wow, little stripes got her, she blinded it," said Tucker, looking up in amazement.
All three of the girls looked on in shock too, completely stunned that one of the ghosts that had been attacking them was now pint sized and was helping them. They stood watching for a few seconds before Sam snapped out of it.
"Now's our chance, Kitty, get me up there," said Sam as the girls all got back to their feet.
Kitty grabbed Sam by the shoulders and lifted her into the air quickly, dropping her on the shoulders of the bear ghost so Sam could wind up. Swinging her cluched fist multiple times, Sam started punching the bear in the side of the head as hard as she could, each blow landing clean since the bear could no longer see what was happening. All it could do was growl in pain and agony.
"Guess what pal, time to hibernate," said Sam before swinging one more mightly punch right against the bear's cheek with every ounce of strength that she could muster.
Due to taking several hard punches to the face, the bear suddenly started to fall over towards it's side. Sam and the tiger cub ghost both leapt off before it could crash to the ground, Sam rolling safely once she hit the ground, the tiger cub landing in Tucker's arms.
"Jazz, do it now," called Tucker as the tiger cub once again nuzzled into his chest.
Jazz quickly positioned herself right in front of the bear's face, lifting her arm and pointing it directly into its now clawed out eyes. Pulling the trigger, she fired a full power blast that enveloped the bear and started to peel it's form away. It took longer than the tiger did, but one by one each layer of the bear was stripped away, making it smaller and more tame with each one. Before long, the giant fifteen foot ball mutated bear ghost had been reduced to a tiny bear cub just like the tiger had. As Jazz finished firing and let the blast stop, the tiny bear was now looking around curiously, seeing the people around it and starting to smile. Scratching at it's face and licking it's paws, the bear cub started rolling around playfully and running in circles.
For the second time since arriving, Sam fell over, this time onto her knees, and was breathing heavily. Once again her adrenaline rush was subsiding and leaving her exhausted. Tucker knelt down to pick up the Fenton Rod that he'd thrown while still holding the tiger cub, Kitty landed next to the bear cub ghost to make sure it didn't cause any trouble, and Jazz activated the Fenton Peeler's disassemble mode so that it retracted back into a handheld device.
"Is everyone okay?" asked Jazz while looking around at everyone, thankfully nobody seemed like they were hurt too badly. Just some cuts and bruises and there would probably be a lot of soreness later, but everyone was still in one piece.
"Yeah, all good," said Sam giving a thumbs up.
ROAAAAAAAAAAAAR
One more roar came from the other side of the room. Seems the lion ghost had regained it's footing and was charging back at them.
"OH COME ON," said Sam in disbelief, just wanting this all to end.
"Muah," came the sound of a kissing motion from Kitty. Kitty had puckered up and was now blowing a kiss towards the lion ghost, who didn't see it coming and took the hit cleanly. As soon as it made contact a flash brightened the room, and the lion disappeared.
Everyone, including the vultures who had stayed out of everything and just watched, were now looking at the spot in disbelief where the lion had vanished.
"Well lucky us that lion was a male," said Kitty as the bear cub ghost was standing on it's back to legs and trying to get Kitty to pick it up.
Everyone took a moment to let out a sigh of relief. Jazz fell onto her back, Sam was clutching her side while on her knees, Kitty was trying to keep the bear cub from jumping on her, and Tucker was snuggling with the tiger cub. Meanwhile the vultures were backed against the wall together and looked like they wanted to be anywhere else.
"I think we should go tell master Plasmius what happened," said one of them hastily, and the other two nodded, not wanting to argue.
Turning away, the three vultures all went intangible and fazed down into the floor.
After taking a few moments to catch their breathe, or in Kitty's case recompose herself, the four of them all stood up and gathered together.
"Okay, everything here is taken care of, we gotta go find Ember and help her save Danny," said Jazz while securing the Fenton Peeler to her hip.
"Alright, let's spread out, and as soon as one of us find her, start shouting or doing whatever you can to get everyone's attention," said Sam. With that, everyone went in a different direction to hopefully find Ember and Danny, Tucker still having the tiger cub with him, the bear cub staying behind and trying to play with a fun looking football in a display case and a lot of signatures on it.
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Ember was flying as fast as she could through the basement of this mansion. But she wasn't having any luck so far and the basement was the size of a shopping mall. Every room she fazed into she made sure to check thoroughly so she didn't miss anything. But she was now pretty sure she'd just moved through the entire basement and had found nothing.
"Damn it, where the hell is he," said Ember to herself in frustration. She started speeding through the walls without stopping now, rechecking everything she'd already checked hoping something would catch her eye. But as she entered what looked like a study with a giant fireplace she stopped again. She hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary when she flew through here a few minutes ago, but now she was having second thoughts about this as she looked on, a thought suddenly coming to her mind. "Could he really be that cliche like the hip...like Sam said?"
Flying over to the fireplace, Ember examined it closely, looking for anything suspicious. And as she got up close and personal, she noticed that there seemed to be a very small crack going all the way up the wall to the ceiling in the middle of the fireplace.
"He really is not an original thinker is he?" said Ember to herself rhetorically.
Turning intangible again, Ember flew through the fireplace and ended up finding a staircase on the other side. Keeping her guard up and her eyes sharp, Ember turned invisible and flew down quickly, peeking around the corner and finding a long hallway. Flying down slowly so she could peek in every room, she ended up finding nothing but a bunch of empty chambers with weird looking lab equipment. Not seeing any sign of either Danny or Plasmius, Ember started to get worried that maybe he wasn't here, or that he'd taken Danny somewhere else once he realized that they'd showed up to rescue him.
"Danny, please be here, please be okay," Ember whispered to herself as she peeked around yet another corner. All she could hear was a bunch of buzzing and bubbling from different machines and ghost equipment, having no idea what any of this stuff does. But as she made her way through yet another room, she froze as she thought she could hear grunting from up ahead, and it sounded like a teenage boy.
"DANNY, IS THAT YOU," shouted Ember quickly before she could think about it and rushed forward.
The grunting suddenly went quiet as Danny heard her voice, suddenly so rejuvenated at the sound of it. Smiling big Danny tried to look behind him as best he could and call out to her.
"Ember, I'm in here," said Danny happily, eagerly wanting to see his amazing girlfriend.
Ember darted forward at top speed, fazing through the wall to keep moving in a straight line towards where his voice was coming from. Once she got through the wall she made herself visible again, and there he was. She'd found Danny and was now hovering right above him.
"Danny," said Ember ecstatically as she rushed to him with a tear in her eye, grabbing his face and kissing him hard. Danny couldn't move but returned the kiss just as eagerly, so happy just to see her.
"I knew you'd find me," said Danny emotionally while Ember cupped his face.
"Of course Baby Pop, it's going to take a lot more than one psycho to come between us," said Ember as she floated back. "Hand on just a moment while I figure out how to get you out of these restraints."
"Don't try to blast them, they absorb ecto energy which is why I haven't been able to use my powers to get loose," said Danny quickly before Ember could try anything.
Ember nodded her head and started looking around the table and nearby control panels, hoping to find some kind of switch or such that would free him.
"Okay, give me a moment to see what I can find," said Ember, checking every single button and switch she came across. But before she could find anything, someone else entered the room and spoke up.
"Well there's another option, I could just simply let him loose," came the voice of Vlad Plasmius, who had fazed into the room without either of them seeing him.
Ember immediately turned to where the voice came from, fire in her eyes once again as she saw the being that tired to take the thing she loved most in the world.
"You bastard, all the medical care in the world won't be able to help you once I finish tearing you apart," said Ember, her blue hair raging out of control as she prepared to launch herself at the pure piece of scum.
"Oh Ember, you have an even bigger teenage temper than Daniel does, quite amazing actually," said Plasmius with a smirk. "But as I said, I could just simply let him loose myself."
Ember was not amused, sneering at Plasmius with more hate than she'd ever had in her entire existence.
"Yeah, I'm sure you abducted Danny just so you can simply let him go when I showed up, aren't you a stand up guy," said Ember sarcastically.
"Oh well of course that was not the plan, the plan was for Skulker to bring me Daniel and your guitar and to destroy you," said Plasmius with his eyes closed smugly. "But since he only accomplished two out of three, now that you're here I've decided to play my own game with everything. And since your friends have their hands full with my minions up above, that leaves the two of you to play alone down here. I hope you like the improvements I made to your precious guitar."
With that last word Plasmius pulled the guitar from behind his back, showing it off to Ember and making her even more enraged.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY GUITAR YOU WORTHLESS SHIT," shouted Ember, her glare burning a hole through Plasmius's soul as she took in the now white and red color of her guitar.
"Just modified it a bit to make it far more useful, useful to me that is," said Plasmius as he raised his hand with the guitar pick. "Looks like the time has come for you to have your first lover's quarrel, try not to break too much stuff now will you."
Ember looked confused for a moment as she watched Plasmius raise his hand, but suddenly it dawned on her what he meant. She knew her own guitar well enough to deduce what he was about to do with it, and now it suddenly made sense what had happened to the three ghosts that attacked them upstairs.
"NOOOOOOOOO," shouted Ember, but it was all in vain as Plasmius strummed the guitar, sending a beam right at Danny. It hit him cleanly and fully engulfed his body, making him squirm in his restraints while he glowed brightly.
"Well, have fun you two, I don't want to be a third wheel," said Plasmius as he hit a button on a remote control, suddenly freeing Danny from his restraints. Turning intangible, Plasmius flew out of the room, leaving the couple alone.
Danny was clutching his head roughly as he tried to fight the effects of the guitar, but slowly he stopped shaking and looked right into Ember's eyes, his own now bright red rather than green.
"Prepare to be vaporized Ember," said Danny roughly and sounding quite evil.
Ember was staring in complete fear at her boyfriend, who no longer looked like he was in any mood to hug and kiss her.
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A/N I had some pretty bad writers block during this chapter which made me struggle quite a bit while I was working through it. Bien that it was 90% action I was difficult to write anyway since writing combat scenes in general is pretty difficult when all you're doing is reading them. But in the end I was able to get what I wanted out of it, and that was just the initial conflict. The real brawl is coming next now that Danny has been turned against Ember. There's quite a dramatic and emotional confrontation going, how do you all think Ember is going to handle it? Obviously she's not going to want to fight Danny, but Danny won't be feeling the same way. Things are still heating up to pretty intense levels, and only time will tell how they play out in the end. I hope all of you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you next time. I'm still trying to stay on my regular schedule if possible, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to with my busy life right now. Until then love you all and please REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!