City of splintering hopes: Chapter 5 "Like pokemon cards"
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Ao3
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Danny had briefly gone downstairs to get something to eat before trudging back up to his room and proceeding to pass out on his bed. The day had worn him out and he made the executive decision to tell Jazz, Sam and Tucker about his new bodyguard in the morning.
Of course nothing can ever go Danny's way for long as he finds himself waking up at 4am curtesy of his ghost sense.
Danny practically rolled off the bed, transforming and floating before he hit the floor. The little detail of his new roommate had slipped to the back of his sleepy mind. So as he made his way around the city to look for the ghost that had inadvertently woken him up he didn't spare a single thought on Meda-Lean who had been going through his collection of astronomy books before he had fallen asleep.
He found his search leading him to the docks unsurprisingly.
Before he saw him Danny heard Box ghost monologuing and probably scaring the late night workers.
"Beware! For I am the Box ghost and- ACK" Box ghost's routinely tirade was interrupted when Danny fired an ecto-blast at his face.
"Ah! There you are ghost child! Come to try to stop my cardboard fury!?" Box ghost exclaimed. Danny just rolled his eyes, his usual banter just on the tip of his tongue when suddenly something whipped past him and slammed Box ghost into the ground so hard Danny winced in sympathy.
As the brief upheaved dust settled Danny caught sight of a familiar stone being.
"Meds, what the heck!? Where did you come from!?" Danny asked as he floated down towards the two. Box ghost was pretty out of it from the hard hit he had taken and Danny couldn't blame him. The concrete beneath the two had newly formed cracks spider webbing out from where Meda-Lean had slammed the poor ghost into the ground, hard.
Danny was once again reminded that for whatever reason ghosts couldn't go intangible through Meds. 'Maybe it has to do with the stone they're made out of?' Danny thought before focusing back on the matter at hand.
Meda-Lean was still pinning Box ghost against the ground despite him obviously being in no condition to escape after that quick, and frankly brutal, attack. The joint lines throughout his arms and legs were fucking glowing and if that wasn't the most ominous thing Danny had seen in a while he didn't know what was.
"Meds, seriously you can get off him now" Danny tried to placate them as he landed and took out the Fenton thermos.
There was another moment of unresponsiveness from the droid before Danny heard the tell-tale clicking sounds of them blinking and then they were pulling away from Box ghost. The glow present throughout the lines across their body disappearing but Danny could practically feel how they kept their eyes trained on Box ghost as he uncapped the thermos and it sucked the unfortunate ghost in.
Turning around to face them Danny was suddenly struck with how freaking tall they were.
It had been something he had barely taken notice of when he first approached the, at the time, deactivated statue. Then the detail had slipped to the back of his mind as he found that Meds was always seemingly hunching over even when they didn't need to. Now though, the robot stood at their full height which was easily a little over 10 feet.
Danny was used to everyone around him being taller than him, he was used to his enemies being large and strong and intimidating but that didn't mean that the effect was ever diminished everytime he encountered someone too tall or big to be human. Meds blinked down at the momentarily stunned Danny before hunching over again to meet him at eye level, a ridiculous looking thing since Danny was only 5'5.
"Are you hurt Danny?" They asked, genuine concern seeping into their voice.
"I uh, n-no" Danny managed to stutter out. He still didn't know how they had followed him without him noticing but he started to understand their hostile behaviour towards Box ghost when Danny remember the fact that they were pretty much his personal bodyguard now.
"Good" They said, tilting their head to the side a bit and half closing their eyes to signify that if they had a mouth they would be smiling.
"Let's just... go home" Danny said and his stone companion silently agreed as they both took off into the air towards Fentonworks.
Danny found himself once again passed out on his bed but this time it wasn't a ghost waking him up but the insistent ringing of his phone.
He grabbed it as he turned over onto his back and held the phone above his face. The sunlight streaming in through the sliver of window that wasn't covered by the curtains told him it was morning. The time on his phone told him it was 11am.
11am and he was getting a call from Tucker. Danny wasn't even aware the other boy had the capacity to wake up before noon on a Sunday.
"Hey Tuck" Danny spoke into the phone as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
"Danny! You didn't call us yesterday, we were worried you go caught up in something" Tucker's voice said from the phone and Danny could hear Sam mumbling something in the background so he knew that Tucker had probably been dragged out of bed by their mutual friend.
"Eh, you could say something like that" Danny said as he sat up straighter and looked around the room, Meds wasn't anywhere in his immediate sight which worried him "It wasn't the usual kind of caught up though, uh. It'll be easier to explain in person, can you guys come over?" Danny asked as he swung his feet over the side of the bed and sat up, ready to go find the droid.
"Sure man, you better tell us all the details!" Tucker answered and Danny couldn't help the sudden yelp that escape him as he finally found where Meda-Lean was.
"What is it? Is everything okay?" Sam's concerned voice said over the phone.
"Uh- what? Yes! Everything is fine! Just uh, slipped. You know how clumsy I can be" Danny said as he glared at the.... what would he even call that? Nest? Overhang? It was a small platform created just above his door. From the sheen of the opaque yellowish surface Danny could tell it was some kind of energy construct, like one of his shields only sturdier looking. There was only about 2 feet of space between the platform and the ceiling yet there was Meda-Lean, who had somehow managed to tuck their long limbs in and fit into the tiny corner space. They were so tightly packed in that the only thing letting Danny know it was Meda-Lean was the fact that the droid's head was poking out, their yellow glowing eyes with their thin pupils blinking at him for a few seconds.
"Okay, sure. Well be over in a bit" Sam said, Tucker exclaims about her giving his phone back in the background, before hanging up.
Danny continued to glare at Meds as he lowered his phone.
"Did you sleep well?" They asked, as if they weren't sitting atop a platform above his door like some weird guard dog owl. Danny realised suddenly that's probably exactly what they were and what they were trying to accomplish.
"You could've told me you were going to make some weird perch for yourself in my room" Danny said, completely side stepping the question.
Meds just blinked at Danny before suddenly unfurling themselves from the tight space they somehow fit into and climbing down from the platform surprisingly gracefully.
"Who were you speaking to?" They asked. It seemed that Danny and them were still on completely different wave lengths but that didn't surprise him.
"My friends. They're coming over and I'm going to introduce you to them. Please for Ancients sake, stay in here until I come back" Danny pleaded as he walked around Meds to the door.
"I must insist on accompanying you incase of a threat" Meds said as they turned to face Danny who was now opening the door to go do his morning routine.
"No, I'll still be in the house and I promise I won't be gone for more than a few minutes. Stay here and don't make any loud noises" Danny said sternly while pointing at the droid.
Meds just blinked but didn't protest anymore so Danny took that as an affirmative and left for the bathroom and then a brief breakfast.
The doorbell had rung by the time he had finished his breakfast and he answered it to Sam's raised eyebrow and Tucker holding a Fenton thermos that Danny knew probably held any ghosts that had caused trouble yesterday while he had been out. That reminded him that he would need to release the Box ghost back into the zone, but later. Now he knew he would have to go through a long explanation to satisfy his friends.
He quickly ushered them up to his room but stopped before he opened the door.
"I just want to let you guys know now, there is someone in my room" Danny said, hand firmly on the handle.
"A ghost?" Tucker said at the same time as Sam went "Does this have to with the 'not usual kind of caught up'?".
"No and yes" Danny answered "Not a ghost, does have to do with a little situation that happened yesterday" Danny said, shooting them one last warning glance before opening the door.
He wasn't really surprised to find Meds not in their immediate sight. Danny sighed as he closed the door behind his friends.
"Um, are they like super small or something?" Tucker asked as Sam examined his room for the not-a-ghost-guest.
"Nope" Danny said, popping the p, "They're probably hiding up in their perch" Danny had decided that was what he was going to be calling Meds little platform, their perch.
"Wha-" Sam started as she turned around to face Danny but then she went pale as she caught sight of what was above Danny's door.
"Yep" Danny sighed and he moved to be standing next to his two friends as he looked back up to where Meds had curled back up onto the small platform, their head again sticking out to look at the new comers.
"Sam, Tucker, this is Meds. Meds these are my best friends Sam and Tucker" Danny introduced them, as if it was completely normal for a large stone robot to be laying up on an energy platform above his door. What had his half life come to?
Tucker, finally taking notice of the new occupant, was staring at Meds with wide disbelieving eyes. Meds came down from their perch once again and both Sam and Tucker took a step back at the surprising height.
"It is nice to meet you, I am Meda-Lean" Meds said, head tilted to the side as their thin pupils bounced between the two.
"Are- are you a... robot?" Tucker whispered, almost as if he was afraid that what he was witnessing wasn't real.
"I am an information retrieval droid, so by your classification yes I would be considered a 'robot'." Meds answered and Tucker looked like he had literal stars in his eyes.
Sam not-so-gently grabbed Danny's shoulder to turn him around and face her.
"What. The. Hell. Happened?" She said, face serious and drawn into a frown. Danny could tell she was restraining herself from just throwing him out the window then and there, probably because that wouldn't garner her any answers.
"You want the long version or the short version?" Danny asked, already tired with this whole situation. He could see out of the corner of his eye Tucker walking around Meds, examining them from all sides.
"Danny." Sam ground out between her gritted teeth.
"I went to the ruins like we talked about. Apparently when I walked up to some important building an automatic system that the Halfas left behind sensed that I was a Halfa, scanned my core, then assigned me a personal bodyguard" Danny said with a deadpan stare. He gestured over to Meds when he finished, sure that Sam could piece together the rest.
"Personal bodyguard!?" Tucker exclaimed, still staring at Meda-Lean in awe while they just blinked blankly at him.
"Ye" Danny shrugged.
Meds decided this was an optimum time to pitch into the conversation "Indeed, It has been officially added as my top objective to keep Danny safe" They said.
Sam snorted as she finally released her death grip on Danny's poor shoulder "Well he definitely needs it, if you're even half good at your job that'll make protecting Amity alot easier" She said, taking in the strange appearance of the droid.
"Trust me, they are. I think Box ghost might think twice next time he wants to reek havoc. Meds here definitely made a first impression last night, as in they left an impression of Box ghost in the ground" Danny said, remembering the glowing lines and frightening speed at which the stone being moved.
"Wait but couldn't Box ghost just phase though them?" Tucker asked and Danny shook his head.
"Nope, whatever Meds is made out of ghosts can't phase through it. Trust me, I found that out pretty quick" Danny replied, a hand coming up to his nose. He winced remembering the large crack sound it made on impact.
"You know Danny, this sounds suspiciously like you've just gained another guardian" Sam commented.
"That is indeed a term that is frequently used to describe my kind" Meds said, looking between Sam and Tucker with a blink.
"Dude! Another one? I swear, Frostbite, Clockwork, Pandora, and now this guy?" Tucker all but yelled.
"I'm collecting them, like pokemon cards" Danny nodded wisely and Sam put a hand to her mouth to stifle the laughter garnered by the comparison.
"Well, if you're some sort of information robot as well as being a bodyguard then does that mean you can tell Danny about the other Halfas?" Tucker asked and Meds nodded.
"I have all information to do with Halfas ever available. All Danny has to do is ask and I will answer" Meds said. Danny was kind of glad he had the droid. He would finally be able to learn about what people like him had been like, even if he would never get to meet them he still wanted to understand them. He wanted to walk through the streets and see the carvings adorned on the walls and know what they meant, what their significance was. He wanted to maybe somehow document the existence of these people so that they could never truly die, never truly be forgotten.
"You said your name was Meda-Lean? Well Meds just doesn't sit right with me so I'm gonna call you Lean" Tucker said, interrupting Danny's swirling thoughts.
"Hey! Meds is a good nickname!" Danny protested. Tucker put his hands up in a placating manner.
"I never said it wasn't, I just think Lean rolls off the tongue better" Tucker defended.
"You may call me what you wish, I do not mind 'Lean' or 'Meds' as they are both just shortenings of my name" Meds said, they sounded like a parent trying to stop their children from fighting.
"Lean it is! At least for me" Tucker said with a smirk and Danny rolled his eyes.
"Anyway, if you two are done, we want the long version of what happened Danny" Sam spoke up, sitting down on his desk chair.
"Yeah! No details left out" Tucker agreed as he also sat down but on the bed. Meds decided to follow the other two's lead and sat down cross legged on the floor.
Danny sighed before sitting next to Tucker and beginning recounting his journey in detail.
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The sound of metal clinking against eachother was the only thing heard in the silence. Sharp metallic wings carried the ghost with pitch black skin above the ancient city. The smell was a day or so old but still fresh.
He landed harshly infront of the Hall of the Ancients. A sneer found it's way on his face as the musty smell of the unique stone and machinery of the guardians clouded his senses.
He took his bow and drew back a spear like metal arrow before releasing. The sound of one of the inactive guardians being pierced by his weapon did nothing to sooth his anger.
The tall figure took back his arrow from the guardian that would not never wake again. He walked down the hall, a rough callosed hand trailing against the stone wall filled with the dreadful machines before he came to an abrupt stop.
One of the alcoves was empty.
"I'll find you yet, little Halfa" The figure practically growled. Only silence answered his words.
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