Behind Blue Eyes
Pain (2)
I don't own Danny Phantom, but man I wish I did.
The second half of chapter nine! This one takes place roughly the same time as 9.1. Read on, readers.
It felt like an eternity that they waited.
A few of the other yeti-like creatures had passed by and talked with Sam and Tucker, but it was largely just the three of them sitting in prolonged silence. Sam offered to show her around a little, but Star had declined. She was far too cold right now to go wandering around.
Tucker had grabbed some snacks from out of the speeder eventually, and they all shared a chocolate bar.
After several hours, Jazz and Frostbite emerged from the doorway, neither looking too pleased. They all jumped up and ran over to them expectantly.
"Well?" Tucker pressed.
"It's not terrible news, but it's not good either." Jazz said, looking at Frostbite.
"Plasmius was not wrong. It does appear that they are being attacked from the inside, on a molecular level by something that is reacting violently to the ectoplasm in their bodies." Frostbite said solemnly.
Star couldn't help but let out a gasp.
The thought sounded unimaginably painful. It had to be unlike anything she could fathom a human experiencing. Not that she had tons of experience in the medical field, but she had rudimentary knowledge of a lot of things and had a handful of hospital visits of her own when she was younger.
The worst pain she had ever experienced was probably when she had broken her leg in three places after a cheerleading mishap. That was bad, and she had nearly twisted her back out of place too trying to correct herself. But that was localized mostly, and above all, temporary.
"So, is there a cure?" Sam got straight to business as always.
"In theory, it would be easy to curate one, yes. But I would need a sample of their blood, and I was reluctant to remove either of them from the stasis chambers." Frostbite said. "There's only so much we can do at a distance and through the tubes."
"My sweaters got Dani's ectoplasm all over it, can you use that?" Tucker asked, unzipping his fluffy orange parka.
Star closed her eyes at the giant green blotch on Tucker's chest. His fuzzy yellow sweater was now at least thirty percent green, complete with flecks of red. Star guessed that was a consequence of being part human as well, though it didn't help that it felt like she was about to be sick at the thought.
Tucker took off his parka to remove his sweater entirely, handing it to Frostbite urgently. All he had was a white tank-top underneath, and some of the blood had gone through to that too. He pulled his parka back on over it quickly, zipping it back up to avoid the frigid air.
"I'll perform some tests with this. Do either of you know what this could be?" Frostbite asked the humans.
"There's not a lot we know about that can hurt ghosts like that. All Danny's parents Ecto-weaponry hurts, but it doesn't break down Ectoplasm like that." Jazz supplied.
"We've experimented with some of the folklore methods. Salt doesn't burn him, but pure sulfur leaves him with a rash. Silver or iron don't do anything, even purified." Sam rattled off. "He can't be warded off by any dreamcatchers that we've tried, and he can cross running water."
"The only other thing we've ever seen have any effect on him is…" Tucker trailed off, looking at Sam. "Blood Blossoms."
Star felt a pit growing in her stomach. Frostbite's eyes noticeably widened.
"Blood Blossoms, you say? You've encountered Blood Blossoms?" Frostbite was clearly shocked. "Those haven't grown in the Ghost Zone in a millennia."
"We encountered them in the past," Sam started.
"Like the past-past, we time-traveled." Tucker interjected.
"When we were chasing Vlad for the Infi-Map. We were in historic Salem, and Danny got stuck in a ring of Blood Blossoms." Sam looked haunted even by the memory. "I don't think I've heard him scream like that since…" It was her turn to trail off.
"Since the accident." Tucker picked up where she left off seamlessly.
Despite herself, Star felt a prickly of jealousy at their friendship. She ignored it. She was getting there.
"Yes, I can imagine. Blood Blossoms are the Earth's natural defense against ghosts, they work as wards and weapons. Ghosts can't stand to smell one, let alone feel one. If someone has weaponized Blood Blossoms on this level that would be… catastrophic." Frostbite said.
He quickly shook his head and turned away, saying he would get his lab techs to analyze Tucker's sweater. In the meantime, they were to continue to be patient out here.
"If it is Blood Blossoms, and it's still doing this much damage to Danielle and Vlad…" Jazz wondered out loud.
Nobody wanted to finish her train of thought for her.
She looked tired, and so broken, so unlike herself. It was unusual to see her in such a state. For the first time, Star began to truly reflect on Jazz and her role in everything.
Everyone in Amity Park knew Jazz Fenton.
She was practically a public figure and held in a much better light than her parents. She volunteered at the library since she was only eleven years old and paid back in food and as many books and articles as she wanted for all the time she put in. She had the highest scores on the CAT's in Casper High history and rumor has it, a teacher tried to fail her because she was desperate not to lose her favorite student. When that didn't work, they asked to move up to teaching the next year.
Dash had the biggest crush on her once upon a time, big enough that it was a sore subject between him and Paulina. There weren't many people that could make Paulina Sanchez jealous, but Star didn't know how else to describe it. And if she was being honest, she could understand it. Jasmine Fenton had it all.
Beautiful as the small-town girls from all your favorite movies. Smart as any college graduate when she was a sophomore in high school. Compassionate as it got in Amity Park. She couldn't think of a single person who had a bad thing to say about Jazz Fenton.
At least until she started hanging out more with her dorky little brother.
According to the general masses, she had become… flakey after. Lots of excuses as to why she couldn't hang out with her friends, being distracted as of late, seeming more tired than usual. Though it was only her social life that took a hit, and she barely fell behind in her studies at all and was on track to attend college at Columbia University. Ivy League, as if she would settle for anything less.
The last few days had given Star a lot of insight on that change in her, and it was one that was almost disparaging to know.
She had kept Danny's secret for almost as long as he had and had been going out of her way to cover for him when he didn't even know she knew. She went out of her way to make things easier for him no matter how it looked for her or the cost it would have on her own relationships with her friends and family.
Gee, that sounded familiar.
Once Danny knew Jazz knew, her desire to help had only grown and she wanted a more active role in helping. There was the physical side, which they all started taking more seriously after Jazz got involved. She trained and practiced with FentonWorks weaponry with Sam and Tucker and helped study Danny's powers however she could. The whole thing had given her a great side interest in biology. She would help with patrols and cover shifts, providing much needed back-up sometimes as well as relaying a lot of information overheard from their parents back to Danny.
Even when she wasn't physically with them, she was putting in long hours elsewhere and continued to blow off her social life. She dedicated hours every night to studying the months of ghost files to catch up on her knowledge. There was only so much she could learn as an outsider looking in, and she had a lot to catch up on.
Then there was the fact that she had quickly taken the role as Team Mom. She was always dutiful to make sure the others, especially Danny, were eating and sleeping well and used every trick in the book to get them to discuss their feelings openly. Sam had told her once that Jazz took pride in trying to help them work through a lot of the psychological side of being teenage ghost hunters. It was obvious that all she wanted was to make sure they were okay.
They all had a habit of burning the candle at both ends all too often, but Jazz took it to a unique level of personal involvement. Sam buried herself in training the weapons and learning about ghost lore and folklore. Tucker buried himself in meticulously keeping files of everything they learned and tinkering with weapons.
Danny, obviously, was literally caught between two worlds to bury himself completely in.
Jazz buried herself in psychology and the human aspect of it all, and it often let her get closer emotionally, but lead to burnout a lot quicker. Star had experienced a small portion of that herself and could recognize the emotional-giver drawbacks immediately.
That was a pain she was more familiar with than any physical pain, after being tread on by Paulina for so long. Some part of her was still resentful about it, but she had been a willful participant in Paulina's games for far too long to play the victim even in her own head. Even still, it was hard to pretend like she didn't carry scars from it all.
Absentmindedly, she moved closer to Jazz as she sat on the floor. They leaned into each other as Sam and Tucker mirrored them.
Frostbite returned after what felt like hours and finally let them back into the room. Most of the technical stuff was done, and they had analyzed Danielle's blood from Tucker's sweater as much as they could.
"It seems you were correct. There are traces of Blood Blossom inside Danielle's Ectoplasm. It's creating a violent reaction inside their systems. I'm afraid Plasmius was correct in his initial assessment." Frostbite said told them.
"What now? Can you cure it?" Tucker asked him.
"I believe so. But time is of the essence, and it may be too late." Frostbite said. "They've lost a lot of blood already, I would need a lot of purified Ectoplasm to perform a diffusion and, and a stabilizer, and many, many herbs to even begin to try and cancel out the effects the Blood Blossoms are having."
"What can we do to help?" Sam asked.
Frostbite paused.
"If you know of any device that can harness and purify Ectoplasm, that would be very beneficial. The natural process of purifying it would take far too long to get enough, even if I asked every member of my tribe to do so. The rest I believe we can scrounge up." He replied.
"The Ecto-converter would probably do. It's got an internal battery pack that stores energy until it needs to be converted. Any Ectoplasm it takes in is automatically purified to be converted out into electricity and Danny's had it hidden for ages now, so there's no way mom and dad have emptied it." Jazz told them.
For the first time in what felt like days, there was a gleam of hope.
"I want to go get my books too, maybe there's something in there we don't already know about Blood Blossoms. They're really difficult to find proof of on the internet." Sam said.
"Okay, I'll drive." Tucker said and they both turned to leave. They paused, shooting a glance back.
"Star, feel like taking another ride?" Sam asked.
Star quickly caught up to them, then cast her own look back at Jazz, who hadn't moved.
"You're not coming?" She found herself asking.
"No point, they can find the Ecto-converter as easily as I could. I'd rather be here in case something changes with Danielle's condition or…" Jazz trailed off.
Or Danny showed up.
Star nodded her understanding, sending a small smile to Jazz before she made her way back to the Specter Speeder with Sam and Tucker.
Star knew in her heart this would be over soon, for better or for worse. They- she only had to endure a little bit longer. If Danny could do it, so could she.
Another thrilling chapter of psycho-analysis! A little lighter than usual on that front, but Star only has minimal and surface-level knowledge of Jazz. Like, even less than she does of Sam and Tucker, so she's got way less to work with. Most of it is entirely second-hand, but I think I got most of the big points across.
So, another piece of the puzzle was revealed. I hope some things are becoming a bit more clear. Star's right, it won't be long now until it's all over. Next chapter will be a bit of an errand run, more will be told to Star and maybe even... the beginnings of a resolution?
Catch you guys next time!