#Danny is his first ghostling and look at all the danger he's gotten into at the fetus age of 3 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

balshumetsbaragouin · 7 years

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Bittersweet Future: Chapter Thirteen

Summary:

The main event, an escape, and the aftermath...

Battle Royale: Part II

“I can’t believe I’m being sent back to the RV like a child. I mean sugar cookies what am I five?”

“Stop your whining! It’s not like you’d be much help as exhausted as you are.”

“Riiiigggght,” Daniel drawled before giving a once over to the person running slightly ahead of him, “and your bum arm would have been perfectly useful for fighting.”

“Oh shut the hell up! I can still shoot with my off-hand; you’re practically falling over.” Jasmine didn’t bother to send a glare over her shoulder, her tone communicating what her face didn’t.

“Yes you’re right, I mean it’s not like I can just make more ener-oh wait that’s right, I can!” Daniel retorted.

“Sure you can,” Jasmine started amicably, “if you weren’t completely wiped from accelerating your energy production twice today already,” she finished with a tone like a sneer. She stopped and turned around to actually send a glare his way this time.

“Oh of course, because being a half-ghost, you’re perfectly versed in the nuances of making spectral energy in your own body. I mean silly me! Here I was thinking you were fully human or something.”

“Oh my God, would you just-”

“Listen, I hate to interrupt this lovely sibling bonding moment, really I do, but do you think the both of you could stop fighting for a few seconds and turn off the shield so I can get inside now?” Danny peered at the two of them from the outside of the RV’s DNA recognition fitted shield, anxious to just get inside already.

The two siblings turned and stared at Danny standing, shifting from one foot to the other, outside of the shield with looks equal measure exasperation and surprise, having forgotten the other boy was even there. Jasmine moved inside first, heading for the control panel, while Daniel leaned against the side of the RV; willing to show some amount of fatigue now that his sister wasn’t around to witness it.

“Alright, it should be off now.” A disembodied voice called from inside the camper.

Danny started forward only to slam into an invisible barrier. “Darn it guys, what gives?” He asked while rubbing the sore spot on his face from hitting the still active shield. Only giggling answered his question before he heard someone shout and the scuffling of feet.

“Damn it Nathaniel! I’m so sorry Danny, Nate’s an idiot, but the shield is down for sure now.” Jasmine said, head sticking out of the door to the RV.

“Oh no, you should turn it back on. Watching him walk into it like a bird smacking into glass is the most entertaining thing that’s happened today.” Daniel smirked as Danny carefully walked forward with his hands out to make sure the shield was really offline this time. He rolled his eyes when he heard his sister call him a morbid jerk and held an arm over the entrance to the stairs when Danny approached them. “Listen, I need to ask you something real fast.”

“Interrogate him later Daniel; we need to get ready to leave, and as much as I hate to admit it at the moment, I’m going to need your help.” The eldest Masters’ sibling frowned from her position at the top of the stairs to the RV before pointing a finger in Danny’s direction. “But mister jerkass over there is right, we have a few questions for you, and you better answer them this time.” She stared over the outstretched arm of her younger brother and into the worried looking eyes of the dark haired teen that had turned their life upside down in less than twelve hours.

“Hey guys! Nate and I finally found Dad with the spy cameras, and boy are you missing a great fight.” Nick claimed from his position crowded around the front of the RV cabin with his twin brother and younger sister. He quickly turned back to the screen, clearly enraptured with whatever was playing on its surface.

The older three kids finally joined the younger three inside before Daniel pushed them out of the way to press a few buttons on the control center panel.

“First things first, let’s turn the shield back on, and turn the weapons system off.” He declared while moving to do just that. Afterwards, he glanced at the screen, and finally noticed what had his younger siblings so enthralled. “Ooookk, that is more amazing than I thought it would be. Everyone to the back, I’m going to turn on the big screen.” He watched with satisfaction as the younger kids practically raced away from the front of the camper to get a better view on the larger screen coming from the ceiling farther back in the RV. Well that tactic worked better than I thought it would. He nodded once to himself before delivering on the promise to display the battle on the larger screens. With a sigh, he finally transformed back into a human.

“Good ploy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them rush away from the control panel that fast.”

“My lord, she does know the meaning of the word compliment.”

“And now I’m regretting giving you one. Do you think you could stop being a dick for like five minutes, or would you implode or something?” Jasmine quirked her mouth into a half smile, knowing she needed to blow off some of her emotional stress as much as he did, and happy he was willing to oblige.

“Implode, highly unlikely. However-”

“Woah! What is that thing?” Danny asked, finally having moved around to a place where he could see the battle taking place on the display.

Daniel and Jasmine moved around to join everyone in front of the screen, before answering.

“That’s one of the GSU’s Air Platforms.” Daniel replied with a shrug. “I mean, I know they look impressive, but they probably have older, lower grade, technology in it than the Hover, and that thing is like four years old.”

“Which makes it like 80 in technology years.” Nick added while settling down next to his siblings, popcorn in hand.

“I-seriously?” Jasmine asked, catching sight of the snack bowl being passed around. While she didn’t begrudge them the world view that made this all seem like a game, sometimes they really seemed over the top with it. She rolled her eyes at their innocent stare and continued, “In any case, old as they are, they’re still effective and dangerous. So-”

“Yeah but not as dangerous as our dad!” Nate interrupted in between slurping on soda materialized from someplace.

Danny had to agree. If there was one thing he was well acquainted with, it was how dangerous Plasmius could be if he put his mind to it…

He always had to be so damnably difficult. A dodge here, a teleport there, and he was 100ft away, always just out of reach. He couldn’t just land and use hand to hand combat like a real man. No. He had to zip and zoom and run like the coward he was, like the coward that his species was. Jack could call Plasmius “he” now, if only in his mind, because unlike the rest of the sniveling excuses for ecto-beings he was different. He had been his best friend once after all… “Are you done playing hard to get Plasmius, or am I going to have to continue for a while longer?” Jack taunted over the distance between them, tapping the barrel of his ecto-gun with his free hand. When his opponent declined to answer, Jack did for him, firing an ecto-blast at him. “Or how about we play tag?” He murmured, bringing another weapon to bear, this time filled with ecto-signature seeking missiles. He loosed another barrage of attacks meant to disable his opponent. Not kill. No that is far too quick and gentle a way to die for him.

Vlad sped off, missiles trailing close behind. He spared a glance behind him to sight his opponent before shooting up sharply into the air. The missiles followed faithfully behind as he zipped and dived in between the remaining Air Platforms. He lost two of the six projectiles in the crowded space between the floating equipment before changing trajectory and heading straight up. Jack easily maneuvered his Levitator into his path, aiming a nasty looking weapon directly at him. He didn’t deviate his course one inch. At the last moment, Vlad turned intangible through a hail of bright green ecto-weapon’s fire. The halfa passed through the attacks and his opponent turning tangible on the opposite side long enough to fire a single bright pink blast in the direction he came.

One of the missiles took the brunt of the damage from the ecto-weapons, meeting an explosive end. The rest dipped around Jack to continue their pursuit and rammed straight into the ball of energy meant as a diversion. The resulting explosion consumed the area in a large ball of flame and destruction that slowly dimmed and faded into a cloud of smoke. Two glowing spheres of different tones appeared as the haze cleared. Slow repetitive claps rang out into the space between the two shields.

“Bravo, bravo Plasmius. You took care of those like they were child’s play, and even used them to incapacitate the launch area of one of my Platforms. I’m honestly shocked. Here I was, believing you had gotten stupider over the last two years since we’d last met in battle. Silly me. It seems instead you’ve just gotten sloppy.” Jack paused as the last of the smoke finally vanished and he got a good look at the other fighter. Not a scratch. Shame. “If you were trying to send your little solider out on a recon mission, then you either trained him poorly or picked the wrong abomination for the task. I would have said you were trying to feint me into a trap if you had not been so woefully unprepared when we arrived. What’s the matter Plasmius? One of your little ghostlings wander away from the nest?” The GSU Commander settled deeper into the Levitator’s seat to balance the large piece on his shoulder.

Vlad frowned at the Commander’s ramblings. “Only you deal with soldiers Jack-”

“Oh yes! I forgot. You are too much a coward to deal with war and the battle field. That’s why you run and hide like the scum you are.” The Commander suddenly laughed before aiming the ecto-weapon a little closer to his preferred target. “I wonder what the rest of your species huddled in my facility thinks about your cowardice; I’m sure they could have used your help when I was eradicating the world of their unholy infestation.” Jack watched in satisfaction as Plasmius hissed and tossed a dark pink attack into his shield.

“Enough talk! I thought you were eager to fight? So here I am Commander.” Vlad bite out his rank through grit teeth and slid back into a fighting stance. He didn’t have to wait long before another set of attacks was headed in his direction. He once again dodged around the initial barrage before teleporting farther off, continuing his strategy from before. He set up a solid ectoplasm shield to stop an even more vicious series of attacks and furrowed his brow in worry. The older halfa had no idea where his wife was, but she was the last member of the group not ready to leave in the RV. He had been trying to find her, but even with the advantage of being airborne, the chaos of the battle below him made the task difficult, especially when dealing with a certain distraction.

It had been annoying to begin with, sure, but now it was simply beyond aggravating. If it hadn’t been obvious before now that his opponent wasn’t taking this meeting seriously, it became so right after he put up a simple ecto-shield and started looking around at the earth beneath him. No doubt searching for Maddie… Still, it hadn’t been as infuriating as the fact his weapons hadn’t so much as dented a single shield the creature had made so far. True enough, Plasmius specialized in energy attacks and manipulation more than the physical, but he had no way to force him into a fist fight where he’d have the advantage. If only…wait! That may work…Jack thought before swerving around to set up another strategy. He slowly moved himself in a circle, watching with delight as Plasmius continued to move himself to face him. After a few minutes he had maneuvered himself and his opponent into the perfect position. Abandoning one of the guns for a moment, the ghost hunter gunned the throttle on the Levitator and sped directly ahead.

Vlad prepared himself for the worse. From the look in the Commander’s eyes he was up to one of his reckless and dangerous, but effective, plots. He watched with increasing worry as the distance between them was reduced by a quarter, and then a half, and finally only three-fourths of its original length. Making a quick decision, he teleported to the other side of Jack to the soldier’s original position. He felt his body solidify and was aware just long enough to see a blazing green blast headed right for him. Then there was a searing sharp pain in his middle followed by a sharp crack that reverberated through his skull. Vlad hissed as he picked himself up from the half-dented half-melted crater in the surface of the Air Platform wall he’d landed in.

The Commander let out a low whistle ending in a ‘bam!’ as he watched Plasmius sail and land into the Air Platform just like he’d planned. That should get his attention. A few of the low ranking grunts hovering around the area chuckled at his sound effect antics before zipping off to a separate part of the valley. “So Plasmius, done screwing around yet?” A blast, tingling with the start of static electricity and swirling with a tinge of green in its cherry blossom color, answered him. He felt a wide grin spread across his face as his opponent hovered a few feet above the surface of the Platform, a fierce look of anger darkening his features. Finally. It’s always more fun when he’s angry. He landed the Levitator onto the surface of the Platform and drew one of his ectoranium laced blades designed to rend ghost flesh. He stared off against his opponent who was still covered in the film of oily grime from the fluid leaking from the damaged wall of the Air Platform. And now it really begins…

Vlad quickly created three duplicates, each of them taking up positions ninety degrees from one another; in a perfect circle around their opponent. They charged a dark green attack in each of their palms, the heat of Vlad’s anger as much as the reduction in strength changing the predominant color of their energy.

Jack slid another sword from its sheath and waited. Now that the battle was on his terms, he was in no hurry. The longer he made Plasmius fight, the easier it would be to subdue him. Despite the persona the creature had made for himself, he knew his energy wasn’t unlimited. He just needed to wear him down.

The start of the battle wasn’t signaled by any sound or movement, just the unconscious acknowledgement of the two fighters involved. Vlad’s three duplicates attacked simultaneously; the one behind him firing an attack, while the two to the left and right rushed forward, hands swathed in energy.

Jack blocked the attack headed for his back with one sword, and then leaned to the right, elbowing in the stomach of one duplicate and sending his ectoranium reinforced boot into the middle of the other. He slid back onto both feet and swiped down at the head of the duplicate on the right while it was leaned over holding its gut. To his surprise, it flipped onto its back, fell to the ground, and blocked the now over-extended downward strike with it energy covered hands. Thrown off balance, Jack threw his weight to the right using the block as a solid base as he cartwheeled to the right. A slash on the left side leading backwards through the cartwheel kept the other duplicates at bay, as he easily landed outside of the old circle. He settled his feet, turned to face them, and then rushed his still startled opponents.

Jack’s boot had just passed over the position of the duplicate on the ground, when a large blast came from the original Vlad. He barely suppressed a hiss as the man merely brought both swords around to reflect the blast and continued charging two of the duplicates. He watched as the copies sent several blasts towards the Commander. Nothing got inside of his expert defense, and he realized with growing frustration that he wouldn’t be able to simply leave the duplicates there while he found Maddie. Well if it’s a fight you want…The eldest hybrid thought while preparing to jump into the fray himself.

Plasmius sent an energy covered foot directly towards his temple, while the duplicates with a clear shot fired towards his body. Jack blocked the kick with his forearm, and deflected one of the two shots, opting to take the last to the middle of his back. His suit sustained the majority of the damage, but his opponent’s energy was hot. It burned more than it stung, but he knew it was better than taking a blow to the head or one of his arms. He gritted his teeth and dropped one of his swords in favor of one of his many guns. He popped two of the duplicates in the chest, before dropping the gun and picking his the sword he originally abandoned in order to deflect more energy blasts. He watched the four equal visions of his greatest enemy regroup and advance as a single line before pausing. “What’s the matter? “ Jack asked as he spied one of the duplicates once again looking at the ground under the Platform. “I promise your ghost sow won’t be killed. So stop worrying about her an-” He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentiment before the hybrid was upon him with renewed vigor.

He knew getting him riled up was all part of Jack’s plan; just the same, he wasn’t about to let the psychotic get away with insulting his wife like that. This time instead of sending all the duplicates to attack at once, he started with one. He wanted to get a good rhythm going in the fight before adding more. It dipped and dodged around the Commander’s increasingly annoyance tinged attacks. Soon, the second and third duplicate had started in on Jack. Two of them kept him busy paring and counterattacking while a third tossed in weak, but well-aimed, energy attacks between the holes in his defenses. Soon enough, the man’s attacks became sloppy from both the burning ache of fatigue and the anger. Vlad saw his chance when the GSU Commander finally dropped one of his swords with a pained grunt as a small ecto-energy blast hit his shoulder. He rushed forward and sent up a silent prayer that his wife was still alright. Wherever you are…

On a battlefield several hundred yards away, Maddie and Jill were still going at it. Ever since she’d heard Jillian order her men to fire at her son, he’s nearly defenseless when he’s using that much focus, she’d been determined to make sure the woman never threatened her family again. Unfortunately, that was much easier thought than done, and she now had a few more trophy wounds to show for the efforts. Her sprained wrist throbbed from the continued strength it took to hold her increasingly heavy bo-staff, but she wasn’t about to give up so easily. She stood facing her opponent silently, for the third time that day, as the chaos around them slowly began to die down.

Jillian, for her part, was in no better shape. After being tackled to the ground, and having her injured arm-that forearm is definitely fractured-jostled by the fall, she’d gotten a few more bruises and a large lick to the thigh that made standing a struggle. Just the same, she was just as determined as her opponent. She’d mostly been trying to ruffle the other woman’s feathers earlier with her comments, but it didn’t mean she didn’t believe most of it. Except for the comments about her Commander, she was sure Maddie’s offspring were more monstrous than anything they currently had locked up in the GSU labs. Twisted little perversions of humanity that they are. Jill set her mouth into a thin line, and steadied her shaking good arm. She noted with some satisfaction that the other woman was shaking nearly as badly as she was.

I have to get to the RV. Maddie realized when she detected the din of battle quieting as the remaining soldiers and machines regrouped towards the last remaining Platforms. She could just make out the rumble of tanks as they barreled towards the middle of the valley, and she noticed with dismay, that she could no longer assume she had the strength to fight off troops if Jill got reinforcements. Just the same, she had to get past the GSU’s second in command first, and she didn’t look inclined to just let her pass. The mother of five chanced a glance into the sky looking for her husband. She knew he was around here somewhere; she’d just seen him flying about, what felt like only seconds ago, but was likely several long minutes before. He’d be able to just grab her and fly them back to the RV with little effort. If only I could get his attention. She thought wistfully, before turning her attention back to the task at hand.

Jillian was about to rush her opponent for what felt like the umpteenth time that day, when a loud explosion rang out over the valley floor. A few minutes before, it would have been indistinguishable from the roar of battle, but with so many men either dead, injured, or regrouping the noise caught her attention. She swiveled around for the source, before locating a plume of green-grey smoke coming from the top of one of the Platforms. She recognized the smoke as the remains of one of their ecto-grenades, but it took a few seconds for the smoke to clear enough to see one of the shapes. Even from this distance, she’d know the person hanging over the edge of the Platform anywhere. She hissed as a separate figure became clear hovering a few feet away from the first, and came to a decision. Her grudge match with Madeline would have to be put off yet again. She spied a group of Levitators heading towards her position, flying towards the Platform, and moved to get picked up. “Sorry dear,” she started while crouching to prepare herself from a leap, “but this is going to have to be postponed. I hope you understand.” She narrowed her eyes as one of the Levitator pilots saw her and made for her position.

Maddie went from confused to shocked when her normally stubborn opponent just called it quits. She was about to count her blessings, when she noticed where the woman was looking. She risked a single look to her left and immediately realized why Jillian was trying to leave. Maddie growled and prepared to stall her further, when she saw her jump and get pulled into the sky on a Levitator. “NO.” Damn it all, just when I figure out where Vlad is. Maddie groused mentally, and prepared to run the distance on foot.

Right then, a group of soldiers practically materialized out of nowhere. They had been approaching from behind, wanting to reinforce their Second in Command, before she’d been picked up by the Levitators. When they saw her get snatched up, they recognized they were in a unique position to catch the usually hyper aware Maddie Masters off guard. They planned on capitalizing on the advantage. They drew their weapons and prepared to fire while on the run, knowing they’d only get one chance at surprising her.

She’d just watched the tired, but still dangerous, Jill disappear to attack her husband when a barrage of weapons’ fire rained down on her. She’d been lucky that the grunts firing at her had bad aim. Still, several of them had to be deflected, and before she could figure out how to get over to the Platform, Maddie had to refocus herself onto the group of fighters approaching from the rear. I hope he can handle them both until we can meet up for an escape. The former ghost hunter thought as she faced off with her newest adversaries.

Vlad’s gambit had worked, and he’d easily grabbed his opponent. Unfortunately, like anything to do with the GSU Commander, the man was making pinning him a battle in and of itself. Two of the duplicates rushed forward to help twist him up, and after a few more seconds of struggling, they’d finally gotten the man’s arms pinned behind him. He smirked as he aimed a blast large enough to knock the other man unconscious. “Anything to tell me before handing off to dreamland?”

“Yush, shuff havd atch’d meh-”

“What?” Vlad slightly lowered hand in confusion.

“I said,” Jack started around the piece of his uniform in his mouth detaching from his collar, “you should have watched me more closely.”

He watched in horror as a mini ecto-grenade rolled into their midst. Vlad looked up just in time to see Jack smile around the pulled pin, before everything went bright green and painful.

Fudge ripple my head is killing me. And my core isn’t much better. He grimaced with the effort it was taking to stay in ghost form. That last blast had taken it out of him. The eldest ghost hybrid looked around to survey the damage done by the grenade. His duplicates had been destroyed in the blast, and had rejoined his ghost form. The Platform’s surface was both smoking in some places and badly scorched in others. Finally, Jack was nowhere to be found. “Where did he…” It wasn’t as if the grenade would turn him into ash, it was mostly calibrated to harm ghosts, and even from point blank range, it wouldn’t do more than burn him. Vlad floated over the surface of the Platform before peering over the edge. Ah, so that’s- “where you gotten to.” He said finishing his thoughts out loud.

Jack was clinging to a twisted edge of the Platform for dear life. He’d expected the blast to throw him some distance, but he hadn’t planned for it to be towards the edge of the Platform instead of towards the interior. He’d had just enough wits about him to grab a hold of something, despite being temporarily blinded and deafened by his own grenade. Now sporting a couple of nasty energy burns on his legs from the blast, it made climbing up a challenge, which was why, nearly three minutes after the explosion, he was still making his way back to the top of the Platform. Just then, he saw Plasmius peer over the edge of the machine. Oh great, it didn’t even incapacitate the bastard. Now more clear-headed than before, he wasn’t sure what had possessed him to fight the creature in a fair one on one fight. Not only did ghosts not deserve a fair fight to begin with, this specific one especially didn’t. He ground his molars and braced himself when he saw Plasmius’ hand light up.

Vlad looked down at the vulnerable GSU leader and, for a moment, he imagined blasting him right off of the Platform and watching while he made a nice big splat on the ground like a bug against a windshield. Before the thought was even fully formed, he changed his mind. For some reason he couldn’t really pinpoint, he just couldn’t kill the man in front of him. The ghost hybrid sighed, and was about to work out how to get Jack back to safety without getting shot at, when a blast slammed directly into his chest. What was…He barely had time to wonder before another equally large shot sunk him further into the surface of the already compromised Platform.

“Does it sting Plasmius? I hope so. We had this gun modified and calibrated especially against your energy.” Jill hopped off the Levitator and onto the top of the Platform. She looked back at the side of the vehicle and noted with concern the way the Commander let go of the side. Sore, injured…I’ll make it pay for that.

The eldest halfa started when he recognized her voice. “Jillian? Still saving Jack’s incompetent apple dumplings are you?” He asked while teleporting out of the crater he’d made and a few feet off. He smirked when she shot at the now empty hole and, when she growled in frustration, it only grew in size. The small victories.

“My Commander doesn’t need saving, but you’re going to need more than a rescue when I’m done with you. In fact, I doubt even our boys in the labs will be able to put your Humpty ass back together when I’m done with it.” Jillian threatened while flicking her oversized weapon to full power. She was joined to her right by Jack and she watched with grim satisfaction as he pulled out one of his deadlier guns. Let’s see if you keep smiling after we blast off your limbs.

The two of them fired right as Vlad erected a light green shield. This is not good. Despite his previous bravado, he was more tired than he initially supposed. Taking them both on at once would be a challenge on a good day, but he was already battle worn, and despite the surety they were just as tired, they didn’t need to fire their own energy. He grunted as an especially large shot hit his ever weakening shield. The tiring ghost backed into one of the walls to brace himself while he thought of a way out of this.

Jill shared a look with her bedraggled Commander; they had the hybrid on the ropes for sure this time. She backed away to let him advance, but continued to pepper his shield with enough weapons fire to keep him preoccupied. They just had to wear him down, and it would be easier to do if one of them was firing from near point blank range. They had little reason to worry about a retaliatory blast at this point. It was taking everything Plasmius had to keep the shield up.

The GSU Commander advanced on his prey, his dimming glow enticing him better than the moon did a moth. It was nearly his. Victory. Jack brought up a different gun, the most powerful in his arsenal, and leveled it right at the creature across from him. With a satisfying crack, the ghost’s shield fell apart, and he charged the gun for another shot.

Vlad had known as soon as Jack had drawn that last gun that his shield was done for. It was hard enough to stabilize it against the current blasts, but he had a nasty scar on the middle of his back from the last time that particular gun had been fired on him from this range, and he had no intention of getting a matching one on his chest. Right when the first shot slammed into his shield, he’d stopped reinforcing it and redirected his energy into an ecto-energy attack. Jack never knew what hit him…

The attack knocked Jack off his feet and several feet away. Before the glow had even stopped, Jillian fired a grenade that blasted her opponent six inches into the wall behind him. She watched with a twisted glee as he collapsed panting on his hands and knees to the ground after bouncing off the wall. She’d switched her gun for an ecto-grenade launcher a few seconds ago, and when his attack threw the Commander away from him, she’d had the best chance to use it.

Vlad curled up holding his middle. He pressed an exploratory hand into the wound and winced. Jelly doughnuts… His hand came back stained with ectoplasm and he suppressed a groan when his last attempt to get back onto his feet left his center feeling like there were shards of something inside. The first grenade hadn’t had done anything like this, as it was mostly energy, but this- he froze when he heard the conspicuous whine of a ghost weapon pointed at his head. He sent up his fiercest glare in Jillian’s direction as she hovered over him with a deadly grin on her face.

Jack was just pulling himself up after that last attack when he saw Jill holding that creature at gun point. He was sore all over, even if not badly injured from his suit’s protections. He took a moment to catch his breath and looked over at Jill once more, noticing this time the way she was cradling one of her arms to her body. Must have seriously injured it earlier. He concluded while working his way back to his feet. He picked up his fallen weapon and walked over to join Jill standing over Plasmius.

“So, ready to give up, or” Jill paused to flick the gun into ready mode once it finished charging, “will you give me the pleasure of shooting your head clean off?” She watched as doubt began to flicker into the eyes of the creature below her. But never fear…what would it take to make him afraid? She felt more than saw her commanding officer saddle up next to her. She could almost feel the smug satisfaction radiating off of him. After all this time, they were finally going to get this son of a bitch. She only had a moment to consider that thought, before she noticed the light in his eyes change from doubt and worry to confident and calm. She followed his eyes over her shoulder and turned to see the Levitator heading for her person. “Jack! Mo-”

Maddie rolled to a stop a few yards away from the flaming wreckage of the Levitator she’d crashed into the surface of the Platform. Unfortunately, the blast had thrown both Jack and Jill out of the main fire, so because of their suits, they likely weren’t dead. Luckily though, her husband had seen her coming, and she was sure he- oh there he is now. She watched with apprehension as Vlad half-floated, half-limped out of the burning fire while still intangible.

The crash and resulting explosion hadn’t hurt him, but he was already so exhausted from the previous fighting and the- oh goody it’s still bleeding- wound to his stomach that even maintaining intangibility at this point was a struggle. He joined his wife away from the fire with a weary smile. He could always count on her whenever he needed it. Now, he just had to get them back to the RV. Through the rising smoke in the last of the daylight, he could see other GSU grunts coming to investigate the fire and explosions. But the ones stomping up from inside, underneath our feet, are the real problem. The oldest hybrid once again fought back the urge to transform. If he transformed now, the injury to his stomach could be fatal. No, he had to soldier on, if not for his own safety, to make sure the rest of his family got out of this clusterfuck alive. Vlad took a deep breath and lifted Maddie into his arms before she could protest.

They were flying, hiding in the light of the setting sun, before she’d had a chance to demand to look at that injury he’d sustained sometime in the fight with those maniacs. Just the same, there was likely little she could do about it at the moment, and there was no other way off the Platform after she’d so thoroughly trashed her ride there. She gasped when she felt something hot and wet when she pressed the hand trapped between them into his stomach. That’s serious. But before she could worry about it further, they were through the shield around the RV and on the ground.

Vlad rushed towards the door and threw it open, climbing the steps before his complaining legs could give out on him. He strapped himself into the driver’s seat and turned on the systems of the RV while doing a head count. …Elizabeth, Danny, Maddie. Thank God, that’s everyone. “Alright, we’re getting out of here! Kids, strap in.”

Maddie settled into the seat next to him, brought up the weapons system, and changed the shield to a cloaking mode to save power for what she knew would be the nastier part of the escape through the mountain passes. She glanced back and made sure everyone was buckled before Vlad punched it. She felt the RV zoom to life, heading straight for the woods, through a well practiced path out of the valley. “Is everyone ok back there?” She hadn’t seen anyone look injured, except her husband, but the older two were much better about hiding it than she liked.

“Everyone’s fine mother, we’re just tired.” Daniel winced when he noticed how drained his own voice sounded. He began to relax as the last rumbles of the battlefield faded away behind them. It would take about half an hour to get back into the open in the mountains, so he knew he needed to relax now while he had the chance.

“Are you sure Daniel? I saw you get shot-”

“It drained a lot of my ghost energy, but I’m mostly bruised. I’ll be completely recovered in a few days, I’m fine now so don’t worry.” He hoped that was enough to convince her, he knew that she could read him like a book when she wanted to. He traded looks with his older sister, who was likely thinking the same thing about her own injuries.

Maddie wasn’t fooled, he was likely much more hurt than he was saying, but it also wasn’t serious enough that he thought it warranted attention, and that was a comfort in and of itself. He couldn’t be that badly injured if he still had the energy to lie about it. The rest of her children answered just as emphatically that they were fine. She didn’t believe her eldest daughter either, but the same logic that applied to Daniel applied to her. She frowned when she heard Danny reply. The boy was the reason her family was in trouble in the first place, and she hadn’t gotten a chance to get good answers out of him, not least of which about his ghost powers. She ground her teeth when the end of the forest came into view. “Alright everyone, hold on,” she started while switching the shield back into active mode, “here’s comes the hard part.”

The hard part? What did she call everything before this? Danny wondered with a growing pond of bubbling worry in his gut.

As soon as the RV drove out of the relative safety of the forest, the shield was attacked from above by what remained of the GSU’s air support. A few jets, that had escorted the tanks, fired bullets into the shield, and a few dozen more men on Levitators that had tracked them through the forest fired their own personal weaponry. That wasn’t the main concern at the moment though. Directly ahead of them was a line of tanks. The GSU had surrounded the valley to the best of their ability, and had dropped a smaller number of tanks around all parts of the valley, even as the main force attacked from the east.

Vlad maneuvered the RV around the majority of the tank fire and continued forward at full speed. He wasn’t about to be scared off by a few tanks when he knew the shield could hold up to a direct hit from one of them easily. They just had to get into the narrow mountain passages, and the tanks would be no problem at all. They couldn’t follow on the steep slopes and thin rocky roads-they were more like large paths- he’d cut himself through the mountains for a quick escape. Honestly, an ordinary RV couldn’t either, but he hadn’t built this thing basically from scratch no reason.

The RV zoomed through a gap in the tank line the shield made, and they passed into the mountains. There was a short break in the action as the tank fire stopped and the jets lost sight of them. Then they came out from behind an outcropping of rocks, and the Levitators found them again. The pilots let out an especially large barrage, hoping to knock the speeding behemoth off of the increasingly thin road it was traveling on.

“Geez, that was a big one.” Danny said through rattling teeth, as another set of loud booms echoed off the shield. He glanced out the window and spotted the flying contraptions still in pursuit.

“They are going to have to do better than that if they want to get to us.” Nate said with an energetic smile on his face.

“Let’s hope they don’t have any better than that.” Daniel said while unclipping himself from his seat and pulling down a set of stairs farther back in the cabin.

Danny was about to question what he was up to, when he disappeared up the stairs, and he heard him call down, “ready whenever you need me.”

“We’re coming up on it, so go on and get ready. Jasmine, could you give him some extra cover fire? There’s more of them than I thought there would be.” Vlad turned back to the control panel and shut down the shield. They’d never make the tight turns coming up with it on, the shielding making it impossible to create the needed ecto-energy bridges far enough in front of the RV. “The shield is off, get ready Daniel.”

“What! Why the hell would you turn the shield off?!” Danny would have jumped out of his seat if he wasn’t buckled in. His eyes darted around the cabin, wondering when the next shot would take out a piece of the vehicle he was riding.

“Because we’d never make it around the corners with- never mind, you’ll see.” Daniel said before boldly popping out of the top of the RV and transforming once again.

At the same time Jasmine opened one of the windows on the side away from the mountain wall, and leaned out of it with a gun balanced on her shoulder. She took a couple pot shots at the Levitators trailing them through the mountains before they saw her, trying to keep them focused on her instead of her more vulnerable brother. In her opinion, he had a hard enough task ahead of him without being shot at, even if they did have the majority of the RV’s weapons online.

Suddenly, the path in front of them turned into a hairpin turn of the most extreme proportions. The RV didn’t even tap the breaks, zipping forward up the slanted slope at nearly 70 miles an hour. The turn neared with alarming speed, and before Danny could think to worry, a solid glowing green angled extension to the road appeared.

He blinked when it just as quickly disappeared after they rounded the turn, and Danny realized with a start it had been made out of ecto-energy. He faced forward again and spied another equally wicked turn coming up and he resisted the urge to groan as another stomach lurching seemingly impossible turn took place.

By this time, the Levitators had caught up to their position and they hailed bullets down on the RV. Most of them hit the mountain wall, but a few had to be blocked by a quickly made shield by Daniel. “Please tell me we’re almost there.”

“We’re nearly there.” Vlad replied without thinking.

“No we aren’t.”

“No…we aren’t. Just… hold on a little while longer…” He panted through the growing pain nipping at the corners of his vision. The throbbing was more like sharp shooting pains at this point, but he’d been through worse. If only the road wasn’t so blastedly bumpy. He thought before pushing the RV through another even tighter corner. He audibly groaned when he settled back into his seat from the centripetal force. Something had definitely moved around inside him that time. He gripped the steering wheel as his vision swam after another turn. Just a little further. They weren’t remotely close, but if thinking that kept his vision clear, he was fine with self-delusion.

Danny jumped as this time the energy road underneath them cracked and buckled. He’d have volunteered to replace a much more tired Daniel, but frankly, he wasn’t sure if he could. He’d never tried to make solid ectoplasm that large before, and certainly not that strong. He had no idea if he’d be able to hold them up, and now wasn’t the time to experiment. So, instead he winced when they flew over a gap in the road ahead of them instead of a turn, and prayed they were close to where ever they were running to.

“I’m out of ammo over here! Does anyone have a free battery?” Jasmine slipped back inside the cabin to look for another battery when her mother tossed her gun at her. She didn’t even bother to thank her, quickly leaning back out of the window to give her brother what help she could. There were times when she really wished she had ghost powers like the majority of her family. If only to help out more than taking shots out of a window.“Last turn!” She heard her father call from in the front of the RV, and she braced herself against the window seal.

They were finally out of the worst of the turns, with only a long flat terrible half a mile separating them from the entrance to the cave system. He could turn the shield back on, and pray that the GSU didn’t try anything else today, but he knew from experience that was unlikely. Before Vlad could even set his hand back onto the wheel from resetting the shield, he heard something whistle over head and shoot ahead of him. It was the fighter jets they’d lost when they’d first entered the mountains. He frowned, and pushed the pedal into the floor. Now that they didn’t have to worry about turns, he could floor it.

Now it was a foot race…

The fight jet squadron leader whooped for joy when they were finally able to get a clear shot. His happiness was short lived though, when he realized that the RV was about to disappear into a cave entrance. The Head Commander would flay me if I left them get away. Better a wreck than an escape. He rationalized before picking out a set of missiles on his display screen. He sighted them again, and watched as they closed in on the opening to the cave. “I hope you like being a pancake in a cave-in ghost vermin.” He hissed before letting the missiles fly.

“Uh father, that was the entrance to the cave.” Daniel unnecessarily noted.

“Well aware-”

“Hey I think the cave is collapsing behind us!” Nate called out.

“Well aware. Daniel,” Vlad said while watching in the rear view mirror as the quickly advancing wall of rocks fell, “turn us intangible.”

Daniel took a deep breath and pressed his hands against one of the walls of the RV. The intangibility started and then faltered out. He groaned and then tried again, only to fall to his knees this time.

“Dad if you took off the bracelets we could-” Nate and Nick started at the same time.

“You’ve never turned something this large intangible before!” Their mother interrupted

“I could-”

“-No you couldn’t Danny, the system wouldn’t let you. The RV has been ghost proofed to counteract tampering!”

“I’ll do it!” Vlad hissed out through the pain before glancing at his wife. “Maddie, grab the wheel and keep us straight. You remember where the cave off-shoot is right?” The question was mostly rhetorical; they didn’t really have another option. Vlad closed his eyes and placed one hand on the dash and the other on the driver’s side window. For one terrifying moment, he didn’t know whether he even had the energy necessary, then he reached deep for the reserve of energy inside his core he knew had to still be there, and shifted the RV intangible right as the cave-in caught up to them. His whole body shook with the effort it took to keep them intangible, but he determined he wasn’t going to stop until Maddie told them they were clear of the falling debris.

Maddie jerked the wheel to the left as they passed the last marker she remembered before the opening to the smaller cave they were using as an emergency hideout. She gripped the steering wheel harder and hoped they ended up in the open space of the passage instead of a wall. He can’t keep this up much longer. Finally, the rocks cleared into a medium sized path heading deeper into the mountain. She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and said, “ok we’re through.”

Vlad nearly passed out when he stopped keeping the RV intangible. He leaned over the steering wheel, gasping for air, before easing up off the gas. The RV slowed down to a reasonable speed, as he finally caught his breath and waved off his concerned wife. “I’ll be fine, I’m just tired.”

God, do Vlad and Daniel do that on purpose, or is that lug headed stubborn streak just genetic? Maddie wondered as she shook her head. “Everyone still ok back there?” After a chorus of ‘yes’ and one from Daniel she completely disregarded, she faced forward again and blinked when she realized they were already stopping in the chamber directly ahead of their sleeping space. The Hover was parked inconspicuously, as much as a giant beetle shaped machine could be, off to one side, and she could see the light from the generator powered equipment her husband must of turned on when they’d come through just an hour back. She sighed as the RV groaned to a stop. They’d probably have to do a couple repairs along with recharging it with how it sounded.

“We made it. God, I thought we were deep fried apple fritters for a second there.” Daniel said from on the floor, leaning against one of the walls. “Not that I doubted you for a second, father.” He added while pulling himself into one of the seats.

“Uh huh, which is why you thought we were deep fried.” Nick fired back.

“I said, ‘for a second’, I didn’t say when that second was thing one.” He settled boneless into the seat with a small groan. His muscled ached like they were on fire and he still had to get out of the RV.

“Yeah but, you totally implied it was just a few seconds ago when you mentioned Dad turning the RV intangible, right Dad?” Nate leaned out of his seat and looked at the front of the RV, hoping to get some parental back up. He frowned when his father didn’t respond. “Hey, Dad, you just going to let him call you weak like that.”

“I did not Nate, I specifically-”

“Both of you stop arguing! My head hurts and I don’t want to hear it.” Jasmine cut in.

“Yeah? Well I got slammed head first into the ground from 200 yards up; I can promise my head hurts worse. And besides, I didn’t call him weak, in fact-”

“It doesn’t matter! I don’t want to hear you guys yell.”

“Said the only person in the room yelling. God, do you try to be that hypocritical or is it some innate talent?” Daniel glared across the space in front of him at his complaining sister

Maddie ignored the bickering go on in the back of the RV in favor of trying to force Vlad out of the ball he’d curled into in the front seat. He’d finally transformed back into his human form, but from the look on his face, he was in serious pain. She finally forced him to sit back so she could get a look at the wound to his abdomen like she wanted to for the last hour. “Jesus!” She exclaimed when she saw how much bright red blood was all over the front of his shirt.

Vlad held up his hands and groaned when his wife lifted up his shirt to get at the lacerations on his middle. He was feeling oddly numb all over and the dizziness was back with a vengeance. He sent a weak smile her direction when she gave him a fearful look from her crouched position. “Sorry hun…” he trailed off as the spinning turned into a growing cold darkness.

“Plasmius!”

“Sir! Sir calm down, it’s alright.” One of the grunts standing around in the infirmary cried, placing a hand against his superior officer’s shoulder. They’d found both the Head Commander and the Second in Command lying near a fire on the top of the Air Platform. By the time they’d arrived, 1st Priority and his brood mare had already escaped. Luckily, they’d been able to send out the remaining Levitators and fighter jets in pursuit. Even better, despite the size of the explosion and the resulting fire, both of his commanding officers had been relatively unharmed. It’s good to find the silver lining in things. The grunt reasoned knowing the Head Commander wouldn’t be thinking along those lines when he got his wits about him.

Jack held his aching head. It felt like someone had practiced kicking field goals with his skull. Various muscles screamed in protest whenever he so much as wiggled, and there was the pulling sting of healing lacerations and burns he felt blossoming across his skin. All in all, he felt like shit, and he couldn’t quite remember why. He was in a battle certainly, that much was sure from his injuries. But he couldn’t place where that fight had taken place, or why he’d been fighting. There wasn’t much of a reason for him to be in ghost fights now-a-days, and he couldn’t recall any of the powerful ghosts they had in the facility escaping…so why-

“Head Commander, did you get the number of the hybrid that hit us?” Jill griped from her make-shift bed right next to his.

Ah, so that’s why. He slowly moved his hand away from his temple as the memories started returning. He grimaced when he realized they had all gotten away. “Agent…” he started after opening his eyes. He fumbled around for a name to go with the face for a moment, he was usually much better at this, before giving up. “What’s the status on the hybrids?” He hoped against hope that things were better than they had been when he’d been knocked unconscious. He had superiors to report to himself. They had put a lot of money on this operation. And a lot of favors I can’t afford to lose at the moment.

The grunt frowned as the Head Commander didn’t immediately come up with his name. He’d been a member of the medical team for several years now, and the GSU leader had a knack for remembering the names of everyone who worked under him. I hope he doesn’t have a bad concussion. It was certainly a possibility considering his injuries, but they didn’t have a scanner of any type here to check. If it was anything more serious, they wouldn’t be able to tell until they got back to civilization. “Last I heard, sir, the Levitators and fighter pilots were in pursuit and the tanks were giving them back-up. I saw them fly out of here about an hour and a half ago.”

“According to their last communication, they are chasing the hybrids in the tight mountain passes to the west of this position.” One of the communication specialists said from her position by a large array of keys and screens.

“And when was that?” Jill said while making her way to her feet.

“About a half an hour back.” The communications specialist answered with an annoyed twist of her lips. She knew as well as anyone that they were supposed to check in more than that. Their beacons were still broadcasting, so they hadn’t been shot down, they just hadn’t radioed. That meant one of two things. Either they were so busy that they couldn’t get to a radio at the moment, or they didn’t have anything new to report, so they were avoiding checking in. Or well there’s another option. They don’t have any good news to report, so they aren’t checking in. Let’s hope, it’s something else. She thought before she felt the Second in Command lean over her shoulders to peer into the data flitting across the screen.

“And this is current?”

“Yes ma’am. Their beacons are still broadcasting so-”

“Yeah I get it, they haven’t been shot down; they are just being radio silent. Well that stops right now.” Jill reached down and opened a channel to the leader of the squadron of jets. “Agent Y, pick up your communiqué when home base calls you.” She admonished when she heard the line connect.

“Agent J! I uh, I’m sorry ma’am! It’s just the action has been so intense-”

“Save it soldier, and give me a status report.” Jillian ordered and leaned against the console in front of her with one arm. It hurt to stand, but if she sat now, she was sure she wouldn’t get up for a week. She glanced over her shoulder when she heard one of the examining tables groan as someone shifted their weight on it.

Jack carefully made his way over to the communications area inside the room. It was not as fancy as the stuff in the commander center of the Platform, but it worked well enough. He scrunched his eyebrows when he didn’t recognize the man on the other side of the screen either. I must have hit my head… he thought absently as the subordinate gathered enough wits to properly respond.

“We’ve lost sight of them ma’am. They just zipped into some of the caves around here. But don’t worry!” he hastened to add when he saw both of his commanding officers faces darken with anger. “I sent a missile right into the caves. They’ll be stuck in a cave-in, if it didn’t crush them flat.” He said with a smile inching its way onto his face. He was sure they’d be at least mollified by the news. Instead he got to watch as their faces went from anger to surprised and then boomerang right into pure rage. They looked like they were going to skin him alive.

“Agent Y, you do realize we don’t know where those caves empty out right? They could be stuck, but knowing Plasmius, there is more than one exit out of that cave system. The only thing you’ve done is cut off our entrance to them, and our ability to continue pursuit!”

“Ma’am! There’s no way the rocks coming from the ceiling didn’t crush them to death.”

“Don’t be an idiot soldier! These creatures can walk through walls. All he’d have to do is turn the RV intangible and the rocks would pass right through them.” Jack paused to let the information sink into his underlings’ mind. Of all the incompetent morons! It’s a shame Agent H got killed in action earlier today facing 2nd Priority, she was much more capable. Jack mused through a now throbbing headache right between his eyes. He turned away from the gapping fish of a jet pilot and back towards the medic. “Please tell me you’ve got something for a headache over there. Something good. I don’t want it to knock me out, but you’d better hand me something other than baby aspirin.” Jack grumbled while walking back over to the examining table he’d previously been using as a bed. He sat on top of it, and left the verbal dressing down he knew was coming to Jill. He didn’t have the tolerance for it at the moment. He would have just fired the useless dipshit on the spot. But recruits were hard to come by these days, and they’d just lost-God he didn’t even know how many- in this failed assault. So despite his screw-up costing them another chance to chase down the hybrids, he was worth keeping around with a serious demotion. This cracker-jack is never leading anyone again if I have anything to say about it.

Jill heard Jack groan as her tirade started up. She knew his head was killing him, but she was too completely pissed off to care. They’d just cashed in years worth of good will and favors to get this full assault financed and authorized, and this asshole just blew up their only lead to following the hybrids. Fuck this guy, who placed him in charge of anything? She knew it wasn’t productive to chew out her subordinates, but at this point, it was the only thing she could do, and she wasn’t in a charitable mood. “You goddamn empty headed jackass! Do you have any idea how much effort you’ve-how many people’s lives whose sacrifice you’ve just wasted? I-”

“Ma’am I hate to interrupt you during a good rant, but Secretary Dirk Muller has been trying to get into contact with you both for the last hour. I told him you were both unconscious, but I can’t keep delaying him. He didn’t seem to believe me the first time I told him that.” The communications officer said.

“No that’s alright. Tell him we just woke up, and that we need to get a status update from all our departments before we can talk. Tell him we’ll talk in about half an hour. Patch him though to the command center at that time and the Head Commander and I will deal with him.” Jill set her mouth into a thin line. “You’re lucky we have to deal with this, but I can promise this conversation isn’t over. Once we’re back in HQ, I want the name of your base and your commanding officer.” She dismissed the jet squadron leader and turned around to face Jack.

He was still sitting on the examining table, holding his head, but he took a deep breath and looked up at Jillian. “So how badly are we fucked?” he asked with a little amusement in his voice. At any other time he’d be furious, but the head trauma was making it hard to stay mad.

“Well, we have half an hour to figure out what happened, and come up with an excuse to Dirk as to why we didn’t catch the hybrids. So, not too bad. I mean we’ve explained that mess in Amity four years ago, this should be a piece of cake.” She reasoned with a shrug, though she wasn’t anywhere near as confident as she sounded. They’d had more allies four years ago for one, and the Head Commander didn’t have a head injury for another. In any case, they’d figure out a way through this like they always did. First things first, we need to talk to our troops and see how badly this went.

20 minutes later, the answer to the question of “how badly?” was “pretty goddamn terrible.” They’d not only lost an enormous amount of equipment, 8 out of 10 of the Air Platforms were irreparably damaged, dozens of jets, hundreds of guns and thousands of munitions, they’d lost over one hundred good men and women and injured nearly three hundred more. In between those pilots lost earlier today and the damage to Amity Park and the tanks at Wisconsin and- it was just a never ending nightmare. It wasn’t as if these things were easily replaceable. Not even counting the devastating loss in man power, which was completely priceless in her opinion, the costs of replacing the broken equipment alone would eat into this year’s surplus. I guess we can forget about Christmas bonuses this year. Jillian mentally groused before rubbing her sore wrist. It had already been set, but she’d refused to have it placed in a cast just yet. She still had to report to Dirk, and if he saw her sporting a cast, it would give him an even worse impression of how things went, and they didn’t need that at this point.

“Please tell me all the bodies are at least identifiable. I don’t want to have to delay giving people back their family members because we can’t tell one person from another.”

“Everyone is pretty much indentified, except for a group of pilots who died in a multi-plane wreckage earlier today. Their bodies are too charred to identify right off, but everyone who died in the valley has already been tagged. We just need to notify their families when we arrive back in D.C.”

Thank God for small miracles. It wasn’t much, but getting his people back quickly was something he prided himself on. There was nothing worse than hanging in limbo for a week or more while a coroner tried to pick apart one person from another. Still, this entire operation had been a disaster. Plasmius and especially 2nd Priority had been much stronger than the encounter two years back. This was despite the fact 2nd Priority had been encountered not a full 6 hours before this.

Now there was just the matter of analyzing the massive amount of data from this fight. He truly didn’t envy the men and women working in the data retrieval sector of his organization today. There was a never ending amount of it. Black boxes from the crashed jets, Levitators, and Air Platforms, the recordings and readings from the various tools and instruments, and even from the suits of the fighting GSU soldiers all had to be downloaded, organized, and sifted through. The background noise had to be filtered out, the old data found and discarded, and the novel pieces transferred back to HQ for further study.

Then again, I’m not exactly looking forward to my conversation with Secretary Muller either. There was not one discernible piece of good news to give him. Between the destroyed equipment and the death of his men, Dirk would have been frustrated enough as is, but for all of this to happen with nothing to show for it…If only we’d just caught one of those little bastards. Then I’d be able to justify this massive waste of time. Jack groaned as an extra large sharp pain shot through his forehead. He’d concluded the headache was as much from stress as injury, and it wasn’t likely to improve any time soon.

“The only thing we have left to do for now is lock that mysterious hybrid’s energy signature into the system. I’m sure he’ll show up again sometime, and being able to track him on the network will help us find the others.” One of the technicians offered from in front of the set of computers that were connected to the rest of their tracking systems.

He nodded in agreement, and in a couple strokes of the keyboard, the hybrid’s energy was uploaded into the satellites monitoring ghost activity around the globe.

“Sir, Secretary Muller is on the line.”

“Patch him through.” No sense putting it off any longer.

“Commander, how nice it is to finally speak with you. I heard from one of your subordinates that you and Jillian were incapacitated. I’m glad to see you’ve recovered so quickly.” Dirk’s icy smile beamed out of the large display screen in the command center. What was left of the brittle smile vanished in an instant, swallowed up by a look that could only be described as thunderous. “Now, you plan on telling me where in the Sam Hill you screwed the pooch?”

Well the pleasantries disappeared quickly…”Sir, we may have underestimated the capabilities of the mysterious hybrid we tracked here.” Jillian offered gingerly.

“So you’re trying to tell me that one teenage boy threw off your entire plan?” The Secretary hissed darkly.

“No sir, it would be fair to say that both Plasmius and 2nd Priority have increased in strength well beyond the projections of even our most ambitious models. Either we’ve done our math wrong, or they’ve found a way to get more powerful even faster than we previously thought possible.” Jack answered and stepped next to his Second in Command.

“That’s bullshit Jack and you know it. I’m reading the data that you sent over, and while both of them were much stronger than before, and even ahead of all of your models, it’s nothing you should have been unable to handle.” Muller stopped to set down the set of preliminary reports he’d been reading. “You know what I think the problem was?” Dirk frowned at the tired looking officers standing nearly half way across the country. “I think the problem was poor leadership. Now, normally, I know the both of you are more than capable of turning any ghost inside out or bringing any problem to heel, but this isn’t an ordinary circumstance. Neither of you have historically made the best decisions when it comes to the two adults leading the hybrids, and I think the thirst for vengeance clouded your vision. Now make no mistake,” he held up a hand when they looked ready to interrupt, “you’ve done a lot better than I think any other person in this same situation could have done hands down. If I didn’t know how well you usually perform, I’d chalk it up to you making the best of a crap shoot in terms of chances. But I do know you both can do better, which is why I’m so disappointed. I’d say that in the future I’d suggest you don’t lead the mission yourself, but I don’t know a single person who’d make a good field replacement for you two in this situation, so I’ll just give you the same advice my first commanding officer gave me. ‘Suck it the fuck up’ his exact words mind you.”

“Sir, I know-”

“Damn it I know you know, and that’s why this is so frustrating. I know you can do better, you know you can do better, and we both know even as badly as you did, no one could have handled it better. That’s not the issue here. What am I supposed to tell your detractors back in Washington? ‘Well, gosh I know this looked like a clusterfuck, but just think of how badly it could have gone if someone else had led?’” Dirk set his forehead into his hand, “that’s just not going to cut it. I called in a lot of my personal favors to get you that authorization Jack, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to fight off all the vultures after your funding after this.”

“They can’t cut our funding! We’ve been making them money for years, they owe us that money.”

“I know that too, but they don’t see it that way. Look, you know as well as I do, that the average sheeple doesn’t understand what it is you all do. You’ve eradicated ghosts so well that most of them have forgotten how truly nasty it used to be. A bunch of youngsters with big dreams running around in the Capital now-a-days, mucking everything up.” Dirk paused and shifted his gaze from Jillian to Jack and back again. “You understand that I’m completely ass out here. I promised the president a hybrid, at least one, would either be dead or captured, and you’re telling me neither of those things have happened. Just what do you expect me to do about this?”

“Nothing Dirk. I’m going to be back in Washington in a few hours. I’ll deal with them tomorrow.”

“Damn right you will, because they’ve called an emergency hearing about your competency as soon as I had to report the mission wasn’t a glowing success. These jackals want your head Jack, and they smell blood in the water.”

“Dirk, I’ve dealt with worse before, I had to convince a whole planet that ghosts were real remember? I can handle some pencil pushing show ponies who want to make their constituents think they are doing something against government expenditures. Trust me.”

“You’d better handle it, because it would be a shame to see you fired over some bull like this when I know no one else can handle it. Or worse, see the whole agency dismantled by funding hungry piranhas. I’ll see you at the hearing tomorrow morning then.”

Jack nodded as the picture faded to black. He rocked back into his seat behind the main table in the command center with a loud sigh. That could have gone a lot worse. He was lucky it was Dirk on the phone and not the president or, even more appalling, the Secretary of State Fitzgerald. That man was a bear on a good day, and he wasn’t in the mood to deal with him now. He looked up as one of the technicians called his name. “Take us home. Make sure the rest of the ground troops have regrouped before we head out and make arrangements for the rest of the tanks that can’t be air lifted at the moment to get transportation home.” Jack closed his eyes when he heard Jillian settle next to him in her seat.

No one else in the room was as disappointed as he was, and the only thing he could think about was Jillian’s warning that he should have sat this one out. Dirk was being nice by passing the blame equally onto both of them, but he knew as well as anyone that those admonishments had really been meant for him. I let my demons get the best of me. And he didn’t have to pick a specific demon; there were plenty of bad memories to pick on.

Austin two years ago, Amity four years ago, Wisconsin eight years ago, all failures. He had a record for success, some would even call it impressive, but it was all the times that hadn’t mattered. He’d trade every other victory and captured ghost just to put Plasmius’ head on a pike. He’d trade his entire career to make sure none of it had ever happened. One stupid argument…it was funny when he thought of it that way. So much for regrets…She’d made her choice a long time ago, and if she wanted to chose a monster over him, he’d make sure they both got to watch as he made their lives burn.

At least, that’s what he always told himself before he got a chance to look at her again. Sympathy for the devil. Jack told himself while settling farther into his seat for a good long nap. He’d have a lot to do back in Washington, so it was better to rest now. He wanted her to suffer just as much as he did, but in an entirely different way. Sympathy for the devil that wears a dress. I’ll kill her happiness the same way she killed mine. I loved her once; she deserves to live at least. Plasmius was a completely different ball game. He still wasn’t convinced he hadn’t hypnotized her. Even if he hadn’t, he had a particular kind of hell waiting for that demon. He’d make sure they both burned, in their own way, even if it was the last thing he ever did.

“Jasmine, get the door! Daniel, get up here and help me with his legs!” Maddie ordered in a tone the brokered no arguments.

The siblings immediately stopped bickering and jumped into action. They didn’t know exactly what the emergency was, but their mother didn’t use that tone unless it was serious.

Jasmine was outside holding the door open before she even got a good look at her father. “Oh my God-”

“Stay calm sweetie. I need you to get the medical supplies from the Hover. Do you remember which crate they are in?” Maddie asked while shifting around her eldest son to let him get a good hold on Vlad’s legs. She was already making a list of the supplies she would need in her head. I hope he doesn’t get an infection from this cave.

“Yes I remember, but where do you need them?” Jasmine stepped out of the way as her brother and mother descended the stairs to the RV. She shoved the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach away. There wasn’t time to be weak.

“Set them in the back chamber. Danny,” Maddie stopped to call back into the RV, “I need you to clear off a space in the back of the cave where I can work.” She stopped and hoisted more of her husband’s weight when she felt him slip.

Danny fumbled with his seat belt, before bounding down the stairs and out of the RV. He skidded to a stop when he saw his otherworldly twin struggling to stay on his feet while carrying Vlad. He looked to him, then the light coming from farther in the cave, and back again before making a snap decision. The ghost teen rushed over to Daniel and muscled him out of the way. “I’ve got him.”

Daniel was about to argue the rough treatment when he realized how much faster Danny was moving than he had been. At least he’s not totally useless. He raced back to the back chamber and cleared out some space on a flat surface, working so fast that a few things were just swept onto the floor. He heard his sister call from the entrance to the chamber and rushed over to help her set up a make-shift infirmary. “You go. I’ll set up things here. You’re the one who knows where everything is.” He said while grabbing the last of the items from her arms.

Jasmine nodded and barely avoided colliding with Danny and Maddie on their way into the chamber. “I just need to grab a generator!”

“Bring one of the new ones.”

That last request startled Daniel. As far as he knew, the newest generators were powered by ghost energy, which could be tracked without a shield. They made up for the possibility of discovery with efficiency, renewability and cost, but after just being chased by the GSU…“Shouldn’t we set up a shield if we are going to use those?”

“Not enough time. Besides, I’m not going to use it power the lights.” Maddie answered after setting down her charge. She grabbed a pair of scissors and went to work on what was left of Vlad’s shirt. After tossing the ripped material to the ground somewhere behind her, she set to work organizing the tools she’d need to stem the bleeding. She gasped when she looked down at the wound. It was even larger than before! It wasn’t as if the edges had torn, it was like it was deepening and widening all on its own.

“Why isn’t it healing?” Daniel pondered while handing his mother a roll of gauze.

“He took the injury in his ghost form, so it shouldn’t be this bad. It’s why he stayed in ghost form for so long. I don’t understand…” Maddie cleared away some of the blood before looking back at Daniel. “Do you think you could induce a transformation for me? I need to get a good look at the original injury.”

“I-” He stopped before answering in the affirmative. Usually, it’d be no problem at all, but he was so drained, that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to turn a pin invisible, let alone transform himself or his father. “I just don’t think I have the strength.” He admitted with a silent bitter curse on his own weakness.

“I could do it. Um, if someone talked me through what had to be done.” Danny offered from a few feet away. He watched as Jasmine carried in the small generator and set it next to the quickly cobbled together infirmary bed.

“Jasmine, could you set up some lights closer to us?” Maddie finished checking his vitals and pressed harder on the wounds to help the bleeding. She’d already inspected it for the debris or some other source of the bleeding, to no avail. Despite the fact the wounds continued to deepen, there was nothing cutting into him. At least in this form… “Danny, all I need you to do is transform with your hands placed over his chest. That should be enough to start the transformation. After that, you have to pour energy into him like you’re building an ecto-energy attack in your hands.” She nodded her thanks to her daughter when the lights flipped on connected to the battery in the back.

Danny stepped forward and followed the instructions to the letter. He sighed in relief when Vlad transformed without any other prompting on his part. He was so distracted by the fact it had worked so easily, that he nearly forgot to continue to pour out his energy. “Sorry about that” He said after he watched the other halfa’s black rings frizzle back out.

The Masters’ matriarch had used the time Danny was settling in next to Vlad to start the process of converting the spectral generators to exude their energy not in the form of electricity, but spectral energy again. She handed the wires over to her eldest son to finish up the task for her, and headed back to her husband’s side. “I hope you’re not squeamish Danny,” she said while plunging a pair of forceps into one of the open wounds. It pressed back on the edges of the injury and revealed a piece of metal no bigger than her pinky. She frowned when she finally got a good look at the metal. “This is coated in ectoranium. No wonder it’s only getting worse, this stuff is eating through him from the inside.”

“You know I’m so glad I don’t faint when I see blood or anything because that’d be terrible.” Danny wasn’t a wuss when it came to blood and guts, slasher movies and his own injuries from ghost hunting had made him pretty stalwart, but this was pretty freakin’ gross.

“You’re right that would be terrible. It would mean you’d stop being a battery, and considering that’s your only use at the moment…” Daniel trailed off as he finished the last of the work needed to convert the generator. “Finishing this now means you are completely useless.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be such a-”

“Do. Not. Bicker.” Maddie commanded as she pulled out a few more pieces of metal. How in the world did these get into him? She supposed the reason wasn’t as important as getting them out. Every second they stayed inside increased the chances of a fatal ectoranium exposure. Typically, his energy would neutralize such a small amount, but with all the energy he’d expended and all the blood he’d lost, that wasn’t going to happen. If it kept up, the stuff would end up circulating back to his core, and when that happened-no she wouldn’t think about that. It wasn’t going to happen.

“Where do you need these leads connected?” Daniel ask holding up two intimidating looking clamps.

Maddie pointed it out as Danny steeped as far away as he could while still being in contact. Daniel attached the clamps and retreated to flip the switch to turn on the generator. With a nod, the two boys timed the switch so that there wasn’t a loss of energy, and so that Danny only got a mild tingle of energy.

Danny lingered around inside the back chamber a few seconds after the Masters siblings had vacated, shooed off by Maddie insisting a room to work alone. Seeing Vlad so badly hurt was eating at him. This is all basically my fault. “He’s going to be alright, right? I mean, Vlad’s tough-”

“Danny, I need to work, so if you could go back out in the front of the cave? I’ll call you if you’re needed, until then, why don’t you help everyone else set up?” Maddie didn’t even look up from her work. She had to make sure she got every sliver of metal…

Before Danny had even gotten into the forward chamber all the way, Daniel was upon him.

“You moronic worthless piece of Ent dung!” Daniel swung his fist directly into the other boy’s mouth. He regretted not having the energy to send a punch enhanced with ghost strength into his chomps, but this would have to do. He dragged the other dark haired teen up from the floor, fists full of his shirt. “My father could die because of you! Do you have any idea what in the name of-of the Emperor you’ve done?” He gave the Danny an extra large shake and stared him down.

“Dude, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. It was just a-”

“Do you really think I give a flying fudge? Do you?!” He shook the other teen again and drew back his fist for another punch. This time though, Danny turned intangible and slipped out of his grasp. “You’re more trouble than I could have possibly imagined! I should have put a cauterized hole through your chest the moment I saw you!”

“Damn it man! I know you’re mad-”

“MAD!? I’m not mad, I’m utterly enraged. I’m so ticked off if I had the energy, I’d-I’d…I can’t even think straight.” Daniel threw up his arms before crossing them and giving the dolt across from him his most ferocious glare.

“Wow, it takes a lot to make him speechless, congratulations. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. Maybe we should carve it on the tomb stone when we bury your ass. ‘Here lies Jackass: So unfathomably stupid even Daniel can’t think of a proper insult strong enough to describe him.”

“I really am sorry-”

“Oh sooo sorry you are. So sorry you destroyed our Camp and got us shot at, and nearly got us all killed. So sorry you destroyed an important cache. So sorry good sir, my mistake.” Daniel sneered. “You want to make it up to us? You’re going to start by answering every single question. And if you even think of refusing to answer, I’ll slap a bracelet on you, take the twins’ bracelets off, and have them phase you to your neck into the floor. Then Jasmine can use that empty skull of yours for fudging target practice.”

“I’ve had just about enough of your attitude! I know you don’t like me, and that I’ve royally fucked up. You don’t need to rub my face in it; you arrogant prick. You wanna fight so badly? Then come over here and throw ghost rays like a real halfa instead of using your brothers as a shield.”

“Shield! You Ork-faced twit! You want to talk cowardice? You’re using my father’s trust, my mother’s good graces, and my whole Danish filled family as a shield. You think you’re such hot ginger snapping strudel, then why don’t you go fly right to DC, and tell the GSU where to shove it?”

“Oh yeah? Well why don’t you then since you’re so much better and more powerful than I am, mister know it goddamn all-”

“If I had my way,-” Jasmine started before Danny interrupted.

“Yeah well you don’t!” Danny screamed back, and then sent a glare at both Jazz and Daniel. “You both are worse than your parents! What gives you the right to just antagonize me like this?”

“Because you’re the one who brought the enemy to the middle of our freakin’ lives. If you hadn’t shown up, none of this would have happened.” Jasmine stated matter-of-factly.

“If I hadn’t shown up, none of you would EXIST!”

“Who do you think are you!?” Daniel screamed incredulously.

“My name’s Danny Fenton! And I’m from the alternate reality that got ground up to make yours happen!”

#Danny Phantom #Danny Phantom Fanfiction #Phandom #Bittersweet Future #Balshumet's Fanfiction #Balshumet's Baragouin #Chapter Thirteen

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