Two years. Two god-damn years. Vladimir Masters was not at all happy that he had lost track of the entire family of Fentons. How was that even possible? They were even travelling with others! And Daniel? He didn’t know where that meddlesome teen was either, and this frustrated Vlad more than he would like to admit.
That boy was supposed to be his son, his apprentice, but the child had gone missing without a trace. And he did everything he could to find the teen, but alas, nothing had shown up. Then a weakling of an ectopuss had the audacity to show up in his office. But the thing just... wouldn’t dissolve into a goop of ectoplasm, no matter how hard he tried to destroy it. And it bit him.
This hadn’t had seemed like a problem, but later that night, he had gone through immense pain. It just wouldn’t stop and he was sure he had died twice over. When it ended though, he looked just like the creatures that had ruined his almost perfect world. He was overly tall and had long limbs. But that was just his ghost form. In human, he was tall, but not overly so, and his nails could sharpen by instinct. His eyes had a yellow, cat-like pupil, so now he only wore sunglasses. That was it though. Or so he had thought.
Now, two years later, he had the strangest craving to feed on human flesh, and sometimes he would black out. He went to visit the Ghost Zone, which seemed to have problems with the zombie-like creatures that infested the human world. Ghosts were much worse though, since they could only die once or disappear. This plague prevented that, so the infected spirits were cursed to roam the Zone and find more prey than fade away as they once could.
Vlad couldn’t find any help from anyone, and all ghosts opted to stay away from him. Then he heard of the Ghost Writer. This man was said to have almost every book known to time. He immediately sought the spirit out, and when he found him, begged for help. The Writer complied, giving him a paper with typed information. Vlad had left after that.
He still reread the paper, cursing that there was no way out. It had definitions for the creatures that infested the planet and Ghost Zone. There was the general term-a vrykola: a walking corpse that infected all it bit and had elongated limbs with needle-like claws. Then there was the different kinds of vrykolas. There were the cursed, which were the ghosts that were infected by the virus. Scalers were the corrupted that had a dead mind, but a living body, and they were more agile. There were rams, which were overweight corpses that had immense strength. Dralls were animals that had gotten the plague. Stiffs were the most common, which were shambling human corpses with long limbs. And then the Phantasms.
Phantasms were halfas that came into contact with the corrupted. They came in three stages. The first was a Spectroj, which was a halfa that was infected, but they still had a sense of being and kept all of their thoughts and memories. The third stage was the Wraith, which was a halfa that acted exactly like the Cursed. It was the second stage that had terrified Vlad the most. A Satana. They were halfas that shifted from a Spectroj to a Wraith, they were unpredictable and violent, even when they had a sense of being. Before finally turning into a Wraith, they would have gaps in their memories from when they lost control. Which was the stage Vladimir Masters was on. He had to find a cure and-
A beeping sound interrupted him from his musings. It was from one of the beetle sensors that he had created to lock onto Daniel's ecto signature. He turned on the video feed and was pleased with what he saw: the halfa teen had been found and had gotten infected just like him. This meant that they boy would end up like him sooner or later. This also meant that Vlad had someone to test for cures on other than himself. He grinned. Daniel would become his son once more, and he would finally get a cure for this curse that had turned his world upside-down.
“How much farther?” Valerie groaned as she trudged behind Phantom.
He stopped, causing her to run into his extremely tall legs. “Would you like me to go slower?” He asked. “Cause I see San Francisco as being an hour away from now,” he added with an annoyed frown on his face.
“An hour?” She cried incredulously. They didn’t need to take that long. Phantom could fly after all. “Why don’t you just carry me? Or use telekinesis or something?”
He whirled around and bent down to the huntress’ level. “Because that would take more energy than I have,” he growled. “Stop being so whiny.” The white haired phantasm then stood back up, and went back to walking down the dusty path.
Valerie groaned once more and begrudgingly went back to follow Phantom across the deserted Californian road. The road itself was boring beyond belief; there even wasn’t any vrykolas to shoot! It was overly dusty so that when you inhaled you got a lungfull of dirt, and the occasional tumbleweed would trip you when you walked. “So, why are we going to SF anyway?” She questioned, trying to make small talk to fight off boredom.
“...I got a message from some old friends,” he replied, thinking about the message he had gotten.
Danny was sitting on a roof of one of the city buildings when a silver object hit him with full force on the back of his head. When he picked it up, he was surprised to see a silver boomerang with a green light on it. There was a note tied to it by a aqua colored headband. He opened it with shaking hands and started reading:
Hey, Ghost-boy! It’s yours truly! Psyco and I have been sending radio signals with Chaos for a while now. It seems like she’ll be heading with her dad to meet with us in San Francisco, and maybe you can get here too! The vry’s are getting closer to camp everyday, so it’s a good thing we’re going too. Psyco says that wherever Chaos goes, you will too, and I believe her! We have Cujo with us, so you can just use his e-sig to send back the boomerang. See you soon, bro! -Techno
Ecstatic wasn’t enough to relay the ghost-teen’s feelings when he got the letter. He scribbled a reply that he was going to be there with a friend and punched in a few new numbers into the boomerang. He then tossed the object and jumped off the roof to land in front of Valerie, who leaped back in surprise. “Pack your bags,” he had told her. “We’re going to San Francisco.”
Danny looked up from staring at the ground and grinned. “There it is,” he announced, pointing to a string of lights in the distance. Valerie only laughed tiredly and punched him in the arm, then continued walking. He then picked her up by the waist and ran forward, causing her to yelp in surprise. “We’re almost there,” he told her before flying off the ground and zooming towards the buildings.
“So, why are you carrying me now?” She cried over the wind, grateful that she didn’t have to walk anymore.
“‘Cause we’re almost there,” he repeated before landing on a skyscraper and setting her down. “Now we are there,” he added, grinning.
Valerie smiled back as she adjusted her crossbow and bags. She then paused as she heard something. “Uh... did you hear that?” She asked, looking out over the city.
Phantom gazed over the other buildings, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He too heard a cry, and his eyes widened as he realised who it was. He grabbed her around the waist and shot up into the sky, trailing not just one cry, but two cries that were in unison.
When they landed, the huntress gasped as she saw the two people. It didn’t matter though, because they were about to be bitten until Phantom shot away the nearest vrykolas. He landed in front of the duo and set her down, getting into a protective stance in front of the three humans.
Valerie looked at the two other teens that the white haired phantasm had saved. One was a buff blond boy about the age of sixteen, who was wearing a red letterman jacket and blue jeans. The other was a hispanic girl wearing a pink long sleeved shirt and blue jeans, who was squealing in excitement over Phantom. “Dash? Paulina?” The huntress inquired incredulously at the turn of events.
“Oh-my-gosh, Valerie!” The mexican girl exclaimed as she grabbed the african american girl’s hand. “What are you doing here? And is that my ghost boy behind you?” She added, flashing a sweet, yet feral, grin.
The caucasian blond stepped up next to Danny, looking up at him in admiration. “Woah, man! Did you get taller?” He asked obliviously.
The ghost teen groaned and slouched slightly. “Yeah, well, we should get out of here before more come,” he said in exasperation, giving Valerie a pleading look.
“Anything for you ghost boy~!” Paulina squealed, clinging onto his hand.
Phantom shot the huntress another look and she cleared her throat, gaining the others’ attention. “Ghost-kid is right,” she stated, pulling a protesting Paulina off of his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
