I'M BACK! After three years, I'm finally back! I am so sorry for the three year hiatus, life has been hectic. I've become the very thing I hate: a person who discontinues their story without giving it a proper conclusion.
Warning: The following contains some colorful language because Jayde has quite a mouth. Don't like it, skip!
Leaving the Manor was easier than entering it. That was something Sam, Tucker and Jayde could agree on. The perpetually overcast sky seemed just the teeniest bit sunnier than before.
Danny seemed nervous as he passed through the doorway, something that Sam took notice of immediately.
When the group reached the fencing wall of moldering brownstone, Danny looked hesitant, like he was afraid he was gonna get zapped if he stepped out of the brownstone ring or something.
"What's wrong?" Sam asked, frowning at the Prince's strange behavior.
"Nothing." The boy responded, frowning as well. He glanced at the crumbling entryway to the Manor proper. Then he stared at the empty gap between it. Grimacing and closing his eyes, the Prince gingerly stuck out a hand. When nothing happened, he cracked open one eye, then the other. A glimmer of hope shone in his eyes. Charily, he took a step forward, then another, and he realized that he was out of the Manor proper.
His eyes lit up. He was free, finally free after being stuck in that miserable place for what felt like ages.
"I'm out," Danny breathed. "I'm out!" He repeated, this time out loud. A big, beaming smile crossed his face.
"Now let's get going," Jayde said. "We've got a lotta ground to trek back to Casper."
"Wait, what?"
Jayde, Sam and Tucker could've sworn they heard a record scrape as the three looked at the Prince, his smile melting off his face.
"What?" Jayde snorted. "Where did you think we were going? The Capital?"
"Well, yeah." Danny answered.
Jayde snorted again. "Sorry, Prince, but the Capital's probably a 2000 mile walk from here. One I don't feel like taking."
"Then where are we going?" Danny asked.
"Casper. Any problems with that?" The Latina questioned.
"You're not going to take a no for an answer, are you?" Danny asked.
"I did not spend 2 days on the road and almost get killed by a savage ghost just to be told no," Jayde stated. She approached the Prince and got into his face. "You either come along or get dragged."
"You wouldn't dare." Danny stated, narrowing his eyes at the Latina.
"Wanna find out?" Jayde challenged, narrowing her own eyes at the Prince as she loomed over him. The ninja girl wasn't all that tall, about the same height as Paulina actually, but compared to Danny, who was no taller than Sam or Tucker, Jayde was tall enough for the purpose she was using her height for.
"Not really." Danny admitted.
"Well then, Prince," Jayde continued. "What will it be?"
The two stared each other down. Tucker was half expecting a tumbleweed to pass by any minute now while Sam scowled at Jayde. The fact that Danny thought they had come to take him home was bad enough, antagonizing him about it wasn't necessary.
"Alright, fine," Danny said at last. "I'll go. Happy?"
"Maybe."
A very visible tension permeated the air.
"So, I'm Tucker, Tucker Foley," Tucker said, hoping to break the ice. "But you can call me Tuck. Or T.F., short for Too Fine." He held out his hand in greeting.
Danny grinned. "Okay, Tuck, I'm Danny!" The Prince said, accepting the technogeek's hand and shaking it. "Now do your friends here have names or should I just call them Jane Doe in Black and the Sourpuss Ninja?" He joked, pointing at Sam and Jayde respectively.
Tucker chortled at that last one.
Jayde scowled at Danny. Evidently she didn't appreciate his sense of humor.
Sam raised an eyebrow at this. "I'm Sam," she started, stepping towards the Prince. "And the one you just called the 'Sourpuss Ninja'," the Goth jabbed her thumb at Jayde. "Is Jayde, your future cousin-in-law."
"My future what?" Danny blurted in disbelief.
"Your future cousin-in-law." Sam affirmed. "Jayde's cousin, Paulina, wants to marry you."
"I'm sixteen!" The Prince pointed out in protest.
"You can always be dragged," Jayde reminded.
Danny didn't say anything to that. He just huffed at the Latina.
"This might just turn into one of the longest days of my entire life," Jayde grumbled, rubbing her temples in frustration.
"I have the perfect remedy for that," Tucker offered.
"No!" Jayde said quickly. "We're not interested."
"Why? What's wrong with his remedy?" Danny asked, giving Tucker encouragement.
Jayde scowled at the Prince.
"What isn't wrong with Tucker's-"
"TAaaaaaaaaake MEeeeeeeeee dOooooooooooWn to tHe PaRaDiSE CIty~
WhErE the grAsS is greEn and the gIRls are pREtTY~"
It was horrendous. It was off-key. It was drawn out. It inflamed their ears. It was a wonder that Tucker's glasses didn't shatter. It was so abhorrent, it put a banshee to shame.
Or made it poisonous green in the face with homicidal envy.
Danny's eyes went wide.
"Oh!" The Prince slapped his hands over his ears. Sam and Jayde followed suit.
"TAke ME HOOOome~
Ooooooooooh, wON't YOu plEase tAKe ME hOOOOOOOOmE~"
"Somebody needs some singing lessons," Danny muttered.
"No fucking duh, Sherlock!" Jayde snapped.
"So fAAArrrr aWAaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy~"
"Tucker, please-" Sam pleaded, but to no avail.
"So fAAArrrr aWAaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy~"
"Somebody make him stop," Danny entreated, his hands still clutching his ears. "I can't take much more of this."
"CaPtAIn AMeRiCA's bEEn tOoooooooorn aparrrrrrrrrrrt~
Nowwwwww he's a cooooooourt jesterrrrrrrrrr with a broooooooooooooken hearrrrrrrrt~"
"What crime did I commit to receive this kind of punishment?" Jayde asked the evening sky in despair before gritting her teeth. With one hand still on her left ear, she grabbed the chakram from her sash belt, flinging it in Tucker's direction.
The technogeek yelped, instinctively ducking out of the way of the barbed disc as it sailed into an approaching boulder, embedding itself in the stone.
"Hey, watch where you're throwing that!" Tucker shouted with a glare at Jayde. "You almost cut off my head!"
"I'm sorry, I was aiming for the mouth," Jayde "apologized" sarcastically, walking past Tucker without glance, to approach the boulder. She firmly wrapped her hands around the chakram, and planting her right foot on the rock, Jayde tugged at the barbed disc, attempting to yank it out of the stone.
"The sooner we get to Casper the better," Danny muttered, rubbing his ears, attempting to cancel out the ringing in them.
"Yeah, you're gonna love it there, Danny. It's beautiful!" Tucker chimed in.
"And what about Paulina? What's she like?" Danny inquired.
"Uhh… she's a knock-out, and the governor of Casper?" Tucker answered after a while. The technophile recoiled at Danny's frown of disappointment.
"Yeah, and you can step in a puddle full of her and not get your feet wet," Sam added wryly.
Danny gave the Goth a flummoxed look.
"I'm sorry, what?"
By this time, Jayde had finally managed to wrench her chakram from the boulder's iron grip and stared down into the calm brook beside it. Hearing what the Goth said, the Latina busted into a fit of hysterical cackling. Tucker, Danny, and Sam stopped dead in their tracks and stared at Jayde like she had lost her mind.
Still crowing like a lunatic, the Latina turned to Sam. "You think she's shallow?" Jayde asked mirthfully, wiping a nonexistent tear from her eye before continuing her howling fit.
Realizing that Paulina's cousin understood what she had been saying, Sam replied snarkily,
"Yeah, what about it?"
Jayde threw her head back and guffawed. "You're not wrong," she said between laughs. "She's probably not any deeper than this brook!" The Latina continued, picking a pebble and chucking it in, watching it sink to the bottom. She could still see it.
At this, Sam split her sides. She clutched her stomach as she, Tucker, and Danny neared the brooke and, by extension, Jayde.
Tucker gave the females of the group a scowl while Danny just gave the latter a look of disconcerting.
"Knock it off, you two," Tucker snapped, "She acts like that one time, and you automatically assume that she's like that all the time?" In all honesty, Tucker wasn't entirely sure why he was defending Paulina. The girl did order her beefed out jock lackeys to arrest him and Sam back at the Casper Fields, and then basically blackmailed them into doing this dangerous task for her. Hell, he wasn't really sure himself what her full personality was like. Maybe he just didn't want Danny to be scared off from his future wife.
Jayde and Sam stopped their laughter, the former becoming stony-faced and leveling a scowl at Tucker, the technogeek withering under it.
"Your friend in black maybe, Foley," the Latina stated icily, "But considering the fact that I'm Paulina's cousin and have been around her far longer than you ever have, I'm inclined to believe I know what my cousin is like." Jayde's unsmiling demeanor suddenly turned nonchalant. "But who knows, maybe you're right, we'll let the Prince here do the measuring of Paulina's "depths" when he sees her tomorrow," The Latina finished, ushering with an arm for the Goth, the technogeek, and the Prince to follow her.
Sam and Tucker followed after Jayde. Danny, however, upon hearing the Latina's words, froze in place.
"Tomorrow?" The Prince squeaked, turning ghost white. He looked behind him.
That beamy globe of golden orange in the sky was beginning it's leisurely descent behind them.
"It's gonna take that long? Shouldn't we stop to make camp or something?" The dark-haired boy asked after a quick check at his wristwatch.
"No, that's just gonna take longer," Jayde answered firmly, looking at Danny with a quizzical eyebrow raise before turning her attention back on the trail.
"We can keep going for a little while longer."
"But aren't there brigands and stuff in these woods?"
"Woah! Jayde, time-out!" Tucker piped up, taking a step in front of the Latina.
"Camping's definitely starting to sound good."
Jayde scoffed, "Oh please," she said. "You're just being difficult. Look, anything that's coming out of these woods is getting shot," The Latina grabbed her ecto-gun from her sash belt to emphasize her point.
"Oh, like how you shot the Great Beast?" Tucker sallied with an eye-roll. "Remember how well that went down?"
At being reminded how she almost got herself killed, Jayde scowled. "And anything that did want to attack us has probably already been scared off by your premium ear cancer-inducing cacophony." she retorted.
Sam rolled her eyes. Perfect. Just what they needed right now. Petty arguing. The Goth heard the sound of rustling brush behind her. she turned to face Danny… and did a double take. Her eyes widened.
"Umm, guys?"
"My singing does not give people ear cancer!" Tucker snapped indignantly, not appreciating his "singing talent" being insulted again.
"Guys?"
"My ears say otherwise, geek," Jayde grumbled. "There's not enough consequences in this world to justify that kind of torture."
"GUYS!"
"What?!" Jayde and Tucker shouted, turning to Sam. They realized what she was trying to tell them before she even said it.
Danny was nowhere to be found.
"Danny's gone." Sam said, stating the veryobvious.
Tucker's eyes widened to the size of quarters.
"Where did he-"
The sound of someone breathing through the nose turned the Goth and the technogeek's attention back onto Jayde.
The Latina did not look happy.
Not at all.
Infact, she looked quite pissed.
"I'm going to kill that fucking boy." Jayde seethed.
It was becoming clear to Sam and Tucker that Jayde had catarolysis, as evidenced by her not-so-quietly cursing in Spanish as the three of them hiked through the dense undergrowth in search of Danny. While neither Tucker nor Sam knew what exactly the Latina was saying, but whatever it was, it was downright foul.
"You kiss Dash with that mouth?" Tucker quipped, raising an eyebrow at ninja.
Jayde shot him a death glare.
"One more word out of you, and you're not going to have one," she growled menacingly.
Tucker promptly shut his mouth.
Suddenly, Jayde stopped in her tracks.
"What's up?" Sam asked, stopping as well.
Jayde didn't reply, crouching down and kneeling on one foot. Her green eyes narrowed at the ground.
There was a patch of dirt peeking out from the grass, and there was sort of imprint in it. The Latina parted the grass. If she could see the imprint more clearly, maybe she could-
The grass abruptly shrank away from Jayde's hands and slunk into the ground.
The ninja girl jumped slightly before she realized what had happened. She turned to Sam with a scowl.
"Give people a warning before you do that." Jayde hissed.
The Latina wasn't sure how she knew, considering the Goth girl's eyes were now completely glowing green, sclera, iris, pupil, and all, but the Goth rolled her eyes.
"You're welcome," she said sarcastically in that echoic, raspy voice that she always seemed to have whenever she used those plant powers of hers.
Jayde shook her head. Unnatural, that's what that was. She refocused her attention back on the patch of dirt. Now that the grass was gone, the Latina could identify the imprint properly.
It was an impression, one of a shoe print… one of a sneaker to be more precise.
Danny had been here.
Jayde looked further away. There was another patch of dirt peeking out of the grass just a couple dozen inches aways.
"Do you think you can pull down the rest of the grass?"
The Latina didn't get a response, but the grass snaked back into the soil.
It wasn't a patch of dirt. It was a path.
But a path to what?
The place was kinda like the Manor.
It was run-down and obviously had been something better than it is now.
The ring of cabins was going to rack and ruin, pieces of their roofs missing and some of them looked ready to cave in on themselves.
The Western false front style building that stood off to the left had some of it's washed-out white lettering falling off, so instead of presumably saying: "Mess Hall," it said: "es Hal."
The fieldstone-rimmed fire pit in the very center of the log cabin ring had been reduced to a rock-walled mudhole filled with semi-damp, half-charred and decaying twigs and logs.
A crumbling old signboard dangling from ratty and fraying rope said the place's name was Camp Skull and Crossbones.
Unlike the Manor, however, nature had reclaimed this sad and long-forgotten place… just seemingly in a very aggressive manner.
Vines, their size and thickness ranging from steel cables to small tree trunks, had snaked their way around the wood structures, some puncturing through the wood and unfortunate glass windows, smashing them. Some even barricaded the doors of some of the cabins, making them completely inaccessible. But most alarming of all was their color, a green far too bright and fluorescent to be natural, much like the strange flowers and ferns that occasionally stood up from the calf-height grass.
"What is this place?" Danny muttered to himself.
"You!" A feminine voice growled.
Danny cringed. Very reluctantly, he turned around… and met a cross-armed Tucker, a scowling Sam and a very, very pissed off-looking Jayde.
"Uh.." Danny chuckled nervously at Jayde's livid expression.
"Care to explain why you ran off?" Sam huffed.
"I...got lost?" The Prince answered weakly.
"You got lost when we were right in front of you and walking in a straightline?" Jayde said incredulously, clearly not believing him for a second.
"It can happen, Jayde," Tucker stated, coming to Danny's defense. He shrunk under Jayde's icy stare.
"Even if you did," Sam stated, approaching Danny. "You could've called out so we knew where you were."
"And so would all those brigands and other stuff in the sticks," Danny countered.
"But especially us," Sam restated. "What would've happened if you got hurt or worse and we can't find you?"
Danny looked properly chastised, unable to hold the Goth's gaze.
"Sorry…"
"There's probably nothing within a mile radius of this place!" Jayde snapped. She pulled out her handheld gps, then blinked at the screen in surprise. "What the—"
"Does it matter?" The Prince injected. He pointed to the Sun. It was hidden behind the trees, slyly slinking off into the distance. "It'll be dark soon. We might as well stop for the night."
For a brief second, both Sam and Tucker were worried that Jayde was going to strangle Danny right there and then. Instead, the Latina pinched her nose and exhaled through it. With a barely even expression on her features, she said in an air-tight voice,
"As you wish, Your Highness."
Danny made a face at that.
Nightfall came a few hours later, turning the sky a diamonded blue-black.
Danny had long since retired to one of the cabins, albeit one of the more shambly ones, for the evening. Last time Sam and Tucker checked, Jayde had managed to hack away the vines barring the door to one of the other cabins and entered it, muttering something to herself in Spanish. Again, neither of them spoke the language, but they were willing to bet that the Latina was cussing out Danny. As for the Goth girl and the technogeek, the two were exploring the surrounding area. Well, Sam was exploring the area, pointing out the plants to Tucker, who was more or less following her around, leading to where they were now: at the side of a rush-and-cattail-lined bank of a churning, semi-shallow and leaf-dappled, berylline river.
"And that's Hamamelis virginiana," Sam said, pointing to a small shrub with aromatic, bright golden-yellow blooms. "Also known as Witch Hazel. You can use the extract from that to treat insect bites and sunburn."
"Cool." Tucker replied, looking around at all the plant-life.
"Mhmm," Sam murmured, writing in a notebook with a green ball pen, a smile on her face.
"You know, if we can beat the jocks and escape a Great Beast, we could do anything," Tucker mused. "I could even do the Fright Night challenge!" he mused on the starry night sky, which peered in from the cracks of the forest canopy above.
"I'd have to load up on anti-anxiety meds, but I could do it." The four-eyed teen turned to Sam. "What would you do?"
Sam froze mid-notetaking. "Uhhh, just my normal routine I guess." she shrugged.
"And that is?"
"Mmm, get up, shower, dress, eat, tend to the garden, then go foraging." Sam deadpanned.
"That sounds pretty boring."
"Every now and then I get the chance to train my powers in the form of scaring people out of my woods," Sam added.
"Scaring people off? What? Why would you do that?"
"Because apparently they're above giving me the same courtesy of leaving me alone that I have given them." The Goth replied pointedly and bitterly, scowling at the river in front of them and sitting down a few feet away from it, protectively clutching her notebook and pen to her chest. "I'm not the one with the problem here, Tucker. You saw how Paulina, Dash, and the A-list acted. That's how it's always been! When people look at me all they see is a stupid, ugly, freaky Goth witch!"
"No!"
"My own parents didn't accept me, Tucker." Sam stated.
"C'mon, there's gotta be at least one person who did."
Sam's expression turned somber.
"There were two actually. My Grandma," the Goth girl chuckled darkly. "She was the only reason I knew I hadn't been kidnapped from my 'real' family or more likely switched at birth." The girl frowned again. "But she paid her debt to nature 6 years ago. She was honestly the only reason I stayed there. A couple of months after the funeral, I ran away."
"You what?!"
If the two of them hadn't been so engrossed in their conversation, maybe they would've heard the rustling of the canopy's leaves above them, or noticed how a pair of boot prints pressed themselves into the grass directly behind them.
"What? Did you think my parents would've let me live in the woods by myself?" Sam scoffed.
"Oh no, my mom would've said living in the great outdoors is 'too dirty and lowly for a lady of your station, Samanatha.'" The Goth turned to Tucker.
"If you saw them, Tucker, you would question how in the world are they my parents. Or think you got the wrong address. Me and my parents are polar opposites." She turned away.
"I tried living among people different from the people I had been around before." The Goth girl's shoulders slumped. "But they judged me all the same," Sam sighed, placing her notebook and pen to the side. "That's when I decided I was better off alone."
"Sam…" Tucker said with a look of sympathy. A sudden movement out of the technophile's eye caught his eye. Giving it a quizzical look, he approached the river. He could've sworn he saw something move beneath it's sheeny surface.
Something green and scaly.
"It's not as bad as it sounds, Tucker," The Goth continued, "Returning to nature was probably the best decision of my life," she glanced up at those twinkling stars. "I met Undergrowth, or the 'Growgantuan' as everyone else seems to call him."
"'Undergrowth'?" Tucker queried, turning his attention away from the water, not noticing the spying set of rutilant eyes that glowed beneath the river's dull bluey green surface.
"An ancient spirit of nature, plants to be more specific." Sam studied the grass-carpeted ground, as if expecting something to emerge from it.
"He appreciated that I appreciated plant life, or his 'children' as he called them."
Sam's eyes turned chlorophyll green. The blades of the rushes seemed to sharpen and gain prehensility, lengthening and whipping about like vipers.
"And in turn, he was the second person to actually treat me like a person instead of someone with a disease."
She studied the rushes' movement with those solid green eyes before the light olive glow around her dissipated and her eyes became their usual violet color. "He gave me some of his power to become one with nature, one with plants and control them." The Goth finished, watching the rushes still.
"So, you're like a human with ghost powers?" Tucker surmised, frowning when he heard the sound of effervescing water.
Sam made a face. "I wouldn't say a human with ghost powers," she stated. "More like a human with plant pow-"
A loud splash and a cut-off shriek from Tucker interrupted the Goth girl. Her head snapped to Tucker.
The technogeek was nowhere to be found… but the rippling of the river was a clear indicator of where he went.
"Tucker!" Sam's eyes flashed chlorophyll green. The ground quaked, and twin spinescent vines of vibrant olive-green burst from it.
They plunged into the water, fishing around for a couple of seconds before drawing up both an owly-eyed and dripping wet Tucker Foley and a scaly, green-skinned fish-monster-like ghost that looked like a reject for a lake monster creature feature.
The ghost let out a gurgling growl, the webbed, purple-black fins on the sides and top of it's piranha-like head bristling as it bared it's shark-like teeth, thrashing against the vine wrapped around it.
The vine wrapped around Tucker gingerly placed him on the ground while the vine around the fish-monster flung the creature further down the river with another loud splash.
"You okay?" Sam asked, approaching Tucker and helping him to his feet.
"Me?" The boy coughed. His clothes and beret clung to his form, and the lenses of his glasses dripped water. "I'm good. This belt." He looked down at his Specter Deflector. The belt-like device around his waist was sputtering and sparking and his boots were leaking and squeaking with aqua. "Not so much."
The rustling of the undergrowth, a rumbling growl, and the footsteps of something big and heavy made the two look behind Sam. Their eyes widened. Tucker leapt backwards while Sam skittered away from the massive, purple-furred simian fist that slammed down right where the two had been standing.
That fist belonged to a muted purple-furred, gray Sasquatchesque ghost with blackened spiral horns like a steer's.
The Bigfoot-like ghost bellowed, beating it's fists against it's chest. It lunged at Sam, trying to grab her, but the minute those massive gray hands touched the Goth, a painful shock coursed through it, making it stagger backwards with a shriek.
"What was that?" Tucker asked.
Sam didn't answer. Instead, she looked at her Specter Deflector belt. That was the second time now the belt had shocked someone who had touched her. Her lips curled into a smile. The Goth was starting to get what Jayde meant when she said the Specter Deflector belts were a good choice.
"Sam!" The Goth girl snapped back just in time to see a gray, purple-furred fist rocket towards her.
Instinct took over. Sam rolled to the side, and whipping the smatchet from her belt, slashed across the underside of the ghost's forearm. The apparition screeched, pulling it's arm away.
Ectoplasm, the luminescent, lime-colored ichor of ghosts, oozed from the gash. The Bigfooteseque ghost stared at the wound in shock before snarling at the Goth girl.
Tucker, meanwhile, fumbled for the Winchester Liberator-style ecto-gun strapped on his back. A menacing yowl from behind had him whirl around to the tree behind him, whose leaves quivered before a ghost resembling a blue-furred ape-tiger cross burst from them, pouncing onto the technogeek.
"What? I do just have an invisible sign on my back that says, 'please target me!'?!" Tucker complained before the tiger-ape ghost raised a paw, baring it's gleaming black claws.
"Sam!" Tucker shouted out. "I could use a hand here!"
A quick glance in the Goth's direction showed that Sam was currently busy holding her own against the Bigfoot ghost.
The tiger-ape ghost brought down it's clawed hand, aiming to rake across the boy's face.
"SAM!"
The Gothic girl turned, her violet eyes widened, as she had finally noticed the dire situation her friend was in.
"Tucker!" Sam cried before a sudden, strong, stinging blow connected with her gut.
"Sam! Sam!"
"Tucker," Sam rasped. She blinked at her blurred surroundings. When her vision refocused, she found herself back at Camp Skull and Crossbones instead of the riverside with the ghosts. Only now was everything registering in Sam's mind.
That stupid Bigfoot ghost had sucker-punched her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her, and Sam herself off her feet.
That's when things took a turn for the unexplainable.
Instead of the hard and painful impact and skid across the ground she had been anticipating, something solid and firm came in between her and the earth, breaking her fall. But when Goth opened her eyes to see what had softened her landing, only to find… nothing but thin air standing between her and the ground.
Or so it seemed.
Then, for a split-second, boot prints appeared in the grass just beside her before the Sasquatch ghost suddenly flipped itself over, unwillingly, if the bellowing cry of surprise and protest it gave was anything to go by.
The fish-monster from before emerged from the river, looking angrier than ever, gnashing it's teeth and flashing out it's fins. But before it could, the ape-tiger cross went flying into the fish monster when a stray blast of icy green and white ecto-energy found it's mark on the ghost's chest, sending both crashing into the river with a screech of animalistic rage.
Almost immediately after the ghost was off him, Tucker quickly got to his feet and dragged Sam away from the fight.
Even now she could faintly hear the howls, shrieks and ecto-energy blasts going off in the distance.
"What was- what happened?" Sam croaked.
"We weren't alone, Sam." Tucker stated, not sounding very convinced himself. "Something else was there. Something besides the ghosts."
"My notebook!" Sam gasped, trying to sit up, only to feel a sharp pain in her abdomen.
"Sam, lie down, you're still winded from that gut punch," Tucker cajoled, gently guiding Sam to lying back down. "We'll look for it tomorrow morning."
"If there's any of it left to look for in the morning," Sam muttered somberly. "My grandma gave me that."
"We'll find it, Sam," Tucker assured. "I bet the ghosts haven't even touched it. Just… try and get some sleep."
Perhaps if Tucker hadn't been so caught up in trying to get Sam to go to sleep and Sam wasn't so caught in trying to get up to go look for her notebook, then the two of them maybe, just maybe, would have noticed that the door to Danny's chosen cabin was slightly ajar, opened just enough for someone slip in or out of.
Silent as an unseen and unheard spirit…
"So, you handled the Great Beast?"
"Handled is… one word to describe what happened," Jayde's voice hesitantly answered from the feature phone, the pale bluish glare from the screen being the only light source for Dash as he sat in a darkened parlor of the Governor's manor.
"And you have Prince Daniel?" Dash quizzed.
"Yep. Can you tell Paulina that we'll be back by tomorrow?" Jayde replied.
"Sure."
"Oh, and Dash," Jayde said, her voice sounding strange.
"Yes?" Dash frowned at Jayde's change of tone, having a feeling what the Latina was gonna say next.
"You haven't been eyeing Paulina while I was gone, have you?"
Annnd, there it was.
"What? No, of course not!" Dash quickly answered.
"You better not have," Jayde growled. "I'm going to talk to Kwan and Star now, so you better not be lying to me."
Dash let out a sigh after Jayde hung up, quickly muting the dial tone and activating the phone's built-in flashlight.
He got up from the leather American Empire barrel chair he was sat in and left the parlor, using the light from his feature phone to illuminate the concealing nighttime shadows as he traversed the old Victorianesque corridors of the Governor's manor, warily glancing at the dark corners of the hallways out of the corners of his eyes.
Even with a good majority of the ghosts removed by him, Jayde and the other Jocks, the Governor's manor still gave Dash the creeps at night.
The Edwardian wall light scones had already turned off about an hour ago, and the blackened pewter ravens that adorned them seemed to glower at the Captain of the Jocks with their wrought talons drawn and their metallic wings flared up, their beaks frozen in an unheard cawk as they forever stood ready to descend and swarm.
Periodically dotting the faded navy blue and cream raven-printed walls were the craquelure-laced portraits of the previous ruling lords and ladies of Casper, set in Neoclassical style giltwood frames with their names and the period of which they governed artistically engraved on a fine orichalc plaque below in flowing script. Dash didn't recognize nor heard of any of them before, but their watercolor and oil pastel eyes followed him all the same as he passed them by.
Seriously, why couldn't Judge Ishiyama let Paulina redecorate the whole manor and not just a good number of the furniture? And seriously, what was with all the raven motifs? He knew the raven was the staple animal for the city-state, some story about the founders following one to where they inevitably founded Casper, Dash never really cared to listen to it, but he still found the references to the dark-feathered bird beyond the state flag and jocks' badges excessive as he treaded the familiar hoary carpet flooring of the halls.
The Captain of Jocks let out a sigh of relief when he finally reached his destination: the great hall he remembered Paulina saying she would be. But as he prepared to step into the room, the sigh of relief caught in his throat at the scene before him.
The Governess of Casper was spread out on a plush magenta chaise lounge in the great chamber of chiseled marble, carved stone and smooth-hewn wood, lax as a sunbathing panther.
A shawl-collared, crushed velvet peignoir of pink gold appeared to be the only thing Paulina was wearing, if you weren't also counting the matching slippers she was sporting.
Currently she was drinking what looked like fruit punch straight from a crystal glass porron. Or at least, Dash *hoped* it was fruit punch. The way Paulina was giggling and just her euphoric, bubbly demeanor suggested otherwise.
Dash frowned. Paulina was already in Magistrate Ishiyama's bad books as it is, Casper's Head Judge wouldn't take too kindly to the young Governess drinking… again.
And the possibly intoxicated Latina wasn't alone.
Desiree, the genie-like spirit, looked bored out of her skull… if she even had one anymore.
Dash found himself feeling somewhat sorry for the ghost, something that which surprised him; he had believed any sort of sympathy he might've had for the unworldly beings of the other side had been snuffed out after the countless times he, Jayde and the Jocks had been pelted with volley after volley of smiley fries, sloppy joe sauce, and peanut butter and various kinds of fruit jelly, all courtesy of that Lunch Lady ghost (it had been so gratifying to finally capture and deport that spirit).
"Again," Paulina suddenly said, jolting Dash back to attention. "Show me again."
Desiree rolled her eyes but complied, conjuring the mist image of Prince Daniel from before to appease the shallow-hearted and slightly intoxicated Governess of Casper.
Honestly, she was just waiting for the Latina to fall asleep or leave for the night so she could return to her bottle. She wasn't daft enough to fly off when there were no doubt Jocks outside the walls of this place, ready to shoot any flying and spectral with extreme prejudice.
So to keep herself entertained (and to drown out Paulina's fangirlish giggling), the djinn ghost repeatedly went through a crystal ball of possible scenarios (that Desiree could currently think of) that might play out if (and when) Paulina discovered Prince Daniel's condition in her mind.
Scenes of horror, rage, denial and rejection along with the very unlikely acceptance organized themselves into a presentation that played out almost like a clip show movie in her mind's eye.
If was because the Prince would no doubt try to hide his condition again.
Though with a track record like his, how long he could keep something like that under wraps was anyone's guess. Wonder if his travel companions already knew about it.
Desiree herself was interested in meeting the Prince herself. Errant whispers from the Ghost Zone only could say so much.
In fact, the wish-granter was quite sure a number of ghosts would be very interested in the Prince if they learned he was free.
Brief movement out the corner of her eye drew her gaze to the entryway.
Captain Dash, seemingly frozen in the entrance of this great chamber, no doubt here to inform Paulina whether her team was successful or not. Those navy blue eyes studied the young Governess of Casper, then settled onto Desiree.
The genie-like spirit nodded when their eyes met, making the blonde step back slightly into the shadows of the hallway, eyes wide.
Desiree smiled, her face slipping back into a bored, neutral expression as she turned back to Paulina.
Dash backed up into the hallway at Desiree's knowing nod.
"Oh, Daniel?" Paulina purred, giggling as she took a swig of amaranthine liquid from her porron.
That sent a pang to Dash's heart and his stomach knot, didn't know why though.
"You ok, dude?"
Dash turned to see his friend Kwan and Kwan's girlfriend Star.
Star was a very winsome girl the same age as Kwan, Dash and Paulina, with a well-maintained peaches-and-cream complexion and bright aqua green eyes, her straight, hip-length mane of golden blonde adorned with a single marigold orange flower clip.
A flowy, high-necked floral white tank top with jacinth orange trimming on the neckline and cuffs and a pair of vermillion capri-leggings were her clothes, a pair of spotless white flats gracing her feet.
"We just got off the phone with Jayde," Star stated. "She and that technogeek and goth will be back with the Prince by tomorrow. Have you told Paulina yet?"
Dash gestured behind his back to the scene in the great chamber with his thumb and deadpan expression.
Star and Kwan's eyes became as wide as dinner plates.
"Uh…" Star eloquently started. "Ok."
Kwan grimaced at the sight. "Mom won't like that."
"She's really taken with that 'Prince Daniel' guy, isn't she?" Dash sighed, gazing back on the lounging Paulina.
"No, really, What makes you say that?" Star queried sarcastically.
"She won't shut up about him!" Dash grumbled. "It's always 'Prince Daniel' this and 'Prince Daniel' that! Why can't she talk about anyone else for a change?!"
Kwan snorted, crossing his arms, "Maybe now you know how Jayde feels whenever you look at or talk about Paulina."
Dash's own eyes went wide, face steadily flushing a vivid tomato red. "I-It's not like that!"
"Then what is it?" Star challenged. "You know the history between Jayde and Paulina."
Dash stayed silent.
"It's late, Dash," Kwan stated finally. "Me and Star are going to bed. You should too. Think about what we said."
With that, both Kwan and Star turned and disappeared into the shadows of the corridors, leaving Dash alone with his thoughts. The blonde jock turned back to Paulina.
He loved Jayde, from her messy, dark brown lob hair and piercing green eyes to her spitfire personality. Sure, Paulina was a knockout with her voluminous ebony hair, and her vibrant teal eyes, and her flawless skin, and her—
No, stop it!
Anyway, his heart belonged to Jayde, and she knew that.
Right?
Dash turned away from the great chamber.
Maybe the news could wait.
He had to make sure Pookie and Zorro got to sleep too after all.
With that thought, he returned to the night-darkened halls of the Governor's manor.
It only took three years, but this chapter is finally done! Again, I am so sorry about the three-year hiatus and I'm going to try and do better.
Also in case you were wondering catarolysis is the habit of letting off steam by cursing.
Hope you all had a merry Christmas and have a happy New Year!
Also what do you think of Jayde's personality?
Read and Review!
Next Time on The Goth Girl & The Ghost Prince:
A Tear in the Seems