Chapter 7: Think Things Through
Sweetie, what do you mean, 'no?'" asked Maddie, clearly hurt.
Danny lowered his hands, thinking fast, keeping one part of his mind focused on staying visible. This would be a bad time to loose control.
"I-" stuttered Danny. "We- that is- um. I j-just." He steeled himself, and looked both of his parents in the eyes. "I don't think that would be a good idea."
"Why not, Danny-boy?" asked Jack, sounding lost. "We're the experts."
Danny badly wanted to scream that they weren't, but there was truth to Jack's statement. His parents were extraordinarily skilled ectologists, well versed in the theories of both ghost biology and spectral physics. The problem was that they had inherited a lot of prejudice from Jack's side of the family, which had included witch hunters, vampire hunters, exorcists, and other people who believed in but despised the supernatural on principle. That prejudice, coupled with the tradition of stories in which ghosts were the monsters, had turned into confirmation bias in their work, which led them to concluding that, because the few ghosts they had studied lacked recognizable nervous systems, all ghosts were mindless, heartless monsters. Imprints of the deceased, nothing more. Wrong, but understandable.
Instead, Danny took a deep breath. "Yeah. You are. But you don't think about the consequences when you do things."
"What do you mean?" asked Maddie, her frown deepening.
Danny played with the hem of his hoodie. "We're here in this situation because you didn't think things through."
"We're here because of that darn ghost kid!"
Danny flinched, his train of thought coming to a halt. All that was going through his mind now was stay visible stay visible stay visible.
"No, Dad, we aren't," this was Jazz, coming to the rescue. "We're here because you shot him with a thing designed to be traumatic without thinking about what he'd do next."
"Even putting aside the moral issues," added Sam, with the air of someone who very much did not want to put aside the moral issues, "you guys know that Phantom is powerful. You know about the Ghostly Wail. Um. The screaming thing. And I've sat through enough of your ghost lectures to know that you know that high tier powers like that are usually tied to a ghost's death."
"Yeah, so, really," said Tucker, looking intensely uncomfortable, "you could have predicted the Wail. You should have done controlled testing before using it in a combat environment with all of us innocent bystanders standing nearby. If he had really let loose, and the shield wasn't there, he could have probably brought the building down on us. Remember, he flattened a forest with it once." He seemed to realize what he was saying at the last minute, and looked at Danny apologetically.
"And don't try to say that no one could have predicted the portal," said Danny, finally picking up his own argument. "This isn't about that. It's about all the stuff you could have predicted, but you didn't. A-and you can't- you can't say that ghosts don't feel pain, or you didn't think Phantom'd react like that 'cause you wouldn't've made that if you didn't. I thought you were better than that" Danny sniffed, and to his consternation, found that he had started to cry. "I love you," said Danny, wiping at his eyes, "I really do. But I don't want to die because you guys decided to pick a fight with a ghost."
"Oh, Danny," said Maddie, softly, "I'm so sorry. We didn't know you felt that way." Behind her, Jack nodded convulsively. "We'll do better," she said. She looked at Jazz. "We'll do better," she repeated. "I promise, both of you." She pulled a strand of hair away from where the wind had blown it into her face. Danny only now noticed how the wind had picked up, and how the temperature had dropped. He shuddered. Not good. But Maddie still had more to say. "And when we get home, we'll try to find a more... humane way of dealing with ghosts. For now though..." she paused, frowning, and she turned to address Mr Lancer. "I'm afraid to say that this is the only weapon that came through with us. Or at least, the only weapon that was still with us when we woke up."
"But don't you always have, like, tons of weapons? In, like, your suits and stuff?" asked Star.
"Yes," said Maddie, "we do. But they were all gone when we woke up."
"That darn ghost kid must have taken them!" said Jack, loudly. Danny winced. If this really was his lair, then that statement wasn't entirely untrue.
"So you mean to say that if a ghost attacks us we'll be defenseless?" asked Mr Lancer in tones of alarm.
"Not quite," said Maddie grimly. "We have a small portable shield, and we still have the Mortifier." She hefted the gun, slightly. "Hopefully that will be enough of a deterrent."
Valerie cleared her throat. "That's not all we have," she said. She was clearly nervous. Was she going to..? "I've got a couple blasters with me." Ah, so she wasn't going to reveal herself as Red Huntress. Okay. That would have been a surprise. "And I saw a bunch of stuff from the gym kind of scattered around. Like, you know, backpacks and stuff. Maybe some other weapons came through?"
Mr Lancer clapped his hands together, making everyone jump. "Excellent idea Miss Gray! Our first order of business should be to determine our resources. We should look for backpacks, tools, pieces of the gym, anything that might help us survive or get home. We should spread out. Work in pairs or small groups. Stay in sight of these... flowers." He gestured to the starburst. "Bring everything you find back here."
The students separated along clique lines. Dash, Kwan, and Tiffanie stuck together. Paulina and Star browbeat Dale into 'protecting' them. Elliot and the Spengler twins grouped up, much to Nathan's disgust. Mia, Hannah, and Sarah went together. Mikey and Ricky, who were best friends, grouped up. Rebecca and Ashley stuck with Mr Lancer. Valerie ignored directions and went off on her own. Jack and Maddie, reading the atmosphere around their children for once, decided to strike out together.
This meant that there there were two dozen teens stumbling around in the darkness. The flowers and the stars gave off light, but not that much light, and cell phone lights were of limited utility.
"This would be easier if we had more light," said Sam.
"Probably," said Jazz, pointing her little flashlight at the ground.
"I can see fine," said Danny, his tone teasing. He desperately wanted to take his mind off what had just happened.
"Of course you can," said Tucker with exasperation. "Show off."
"Hey!" The voice was faint. Hannah, perhaps? Danny couldn't quite tell. "What's that?"
Danny scanned the hillside until he found someone pointing, and then followed her finger to the horizon. His eyebrows went up. Yeah. That was weird.
"Is that the moon?" demanded Tucker.
"That's way too big," said Sam.
"Yeah," agreed Danny, watching the white curve come up. "It's coming up too fast, too." He was more bemused by this than anything else. They were in the ghost zone, after all.
In a couple of minutes, the whole landscape was bathed in silvery moonlight. A few moments more, and the moon- well, the not-moon- was overhead.
"So. That was really convenient."
"Yep."
"Right after we were complaining about how dark it was."
"Yep."
"Not the first really convenient thing to happen, either."
"Nope."
Sam cocked her head to one side. "Wow. You know what would be great? If a portal home showed up right now." Nothing happened. "Eh. It was worth a shot."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone