It was a relatively short drive to Section 9 headquarters. With all the tension in the car, it felt much longer. Up until the car ride I had conveniently forgotten about the fact that this was a fanfiction. It was a relatively unread fic called 'The Phantom in the Machine'. It hadn't gotten very far in; about six chapters, but I was pretty certain that it was this from reading the prologue. It talked about some kidnappings and hinted that Vlad was the culprit, but it never mentioned it again for as far as it went. Why do I bring it up? Well...
During the ride, nothing was really happening. Batou was driving while Major Motoko Kusanagi and I were sitting in the back. It was pretty awkward in there already. It was for me anyway. I couldn't get a read on either of them. I honestly couldn't stand it anymore and spoke up.
"So... um... I'm sorry about before," I said while looking out of the window instead of at them. "I was just trying to help my friend."
"Your friend was with a pretty nasty fellow."
"Heh, yeah. Not nearly as bad as if it was Skulker who had found out about her," I quipped.
I was immediately grabbed by the shirt and pulled around to face the Major eye to eye.
"How the hell do you know about all of these ghosts? The public in general may know a little about ghosts, but not in the amount of detail you seem to know."
This seemed a bit too temperamental for the Major, but I hadn't really been to privy to what happened around here. Of the few chapters I had read, none of them contained any real backstory. I mean, I knew their original backstory on both stories, but this was a mash-up where their stories would change because they were no longer separate entities. Despite that, the fic hadn't gotten into that yet.
Her stare and threatening grip was enough to get me to answer her. Rather, it would have but I was distracted by the fact that her eyes were glowing completely green. It wasn't just her iris, but it was also her pupils and scelera.
"Your eyes," I commented.
Her eyes returned to normal and she pushed me back to my side of the car.
"I remember when Danny got angry about something and his eyes lit up like that. It was his ghost half leaking through. That's what's happening with you isn't it?"
"Kid," Batou interrupted, "you don't want to go there and you definitely don't talk about that to anyone. It's a state secret."
"Well, yeah, I would figure that it would be. Uh, to answer your question, I really am not sure if I should answer you because I have no idea how you'll take it. I had to answer similar questions with Applejack and her friends as well as... when Batman asked."
Yeah, I didn't get asked that exact question by Batman, but mentioning him got the reaction I was looking for. I wasn't sure giving them the answer I did was a good idea or not, but I figured that given all of the psychological drama that Ghost in the Shell goes through that telling them might not have a really negative effect. The Major seemed to get past it if her tone of voice suggested anything.
"Well I suppose in the grand scheme of things that nothing has really changed. I'm not any different than I was before I was told. I do wonder how much do you know?"
"It depends This is more of an iteration than what I know. The main point was that I didn't know you were a ghost hybrid. I only knew of Vlad, Danny, and the other Danni, though I forgot about her the last time I was here."
"I'm afraid that there's only one Danny. We couldn't save his cousin from Vlad."
"Aw what? Nooo, that... that sucks. She was such a nice little girl who only wanted to be left alone. She didn't deserve that."
Silence once again reigned inside the car. It was like that until we arrived at an underground parking lot. It was fairly well lit despite the lack of any natural lighting filtering in. I did note that the place seemed to have a green tint to it. It made me realize that a good deal of the areas I went to that didn't have natural light had some kind of green tint to it. The three of us got out and walked over to an elevator which we quickly rode up on.
The elevator let us out to a rather spacious room. It was a split level room with a small stairwell in the middle connecting the two. One wall was an enormous window that sloped down from the ceiling and stopped about eight feet off of the ground before coming to a partition which underneath was more window that went to the ground. The wall to my right had several large bookcases that contained all kinds of tomes on it on both levels with small trees in each corner on both levels. There were also small trees in each corner of the wall to my left in a similar style. Along that wall on the lower section was a large white couch with enough room for six people to sit. Along the wall with the elevator were two massive wall screens on either side. They started about three feet off of the ground and went up about fifteen feet and spread out to either wall about thirty feet away. There were a few small shrubs underneath those screens as well to liven it up, but not tall enough to get in the way of seeing them.
On the lower floor was all of the furniture. A large wooden like desk that looked like a judge's bench on one side of the room that could overlook the rest of the room. The rest of the room being lined with white sofas and chairs enough for twenty people to sit comfortably that were lined uniformly from the small wall of the upper area. A nice glass table with a metal frame was positioned in the center of all the seating and sat upon the floor which was a hard, beige-colored plastic that was quite odd to look at. Wherever you looked, that plastic stuff outlined everything in the room.
Not a bad room all things considered as I walked down the few stairs and noticed just about every member of Section 9 sitting in those seats as well as Applejack and a few people I wasn't expecting there. Those being the three people from the Danny Phantom side of things: Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, and Tucker Foley. Of the Section 9 group, Togusa, Saito, Pazu, Ishikawa, and Boma were all sitting around too. All of them had their eyes on me as I descended the stairs.
"Hey there Seth. Ya get back from tha station alright?" Applejack asked me with a bit of a grin.
"Yeah, that was certainly a fun trip," I commented in an aloof manner. "Got to meet interesting people and whatnot."
Danny jumped to his feet with an angry look on his face.
"You let Desiree regain her powers and escape!"
"I wished her back to the Ghost Zone thank you very much! She's not out roaming the city or anything."
"That's still being irresponsible!"
"Hey, I'm not a saint," I said while waving my hand in front of my face and making it look like there was a halo over my head. "I'm not the devil either," I said with another wave making my face appear deep red and replacing the halo with long horns. "I'm just me," I finished with another wave turning back to normal.
"Ain't that the problem?" Applejack quipped.
"Ha ha A.J. Where do you come up with those?"
"So you're not a ghost," Sam chimed in. "Then what are you?"
"I think a mage would be the most apt description I could give. I can use magic spells to change reality. It's similar to what Desiree can do actually, except where she gains power by granting desires I gain power by just being around chaotic events. I convert the ambient energy in the area into magical energy and store it away. I have a limit as to how much I can store, but it hasn't been an issue most of the time."
"Why are you being so candid with us? It can't just be because you can't move freely with your accomplice."
"Well, I think it's because I can trust you all. I mean, I'm kind of on the verge of nerding out about- Oh crap I forgot my camera!" I yelled clutching my head.
It should go without saying, but that definitely got me some weird looks. Except from Applejack since she was busy planting her hoof in her face.
"Really Seth? Ya know we ain't got time fer that! We gotta find that rip and close it before bad things happen!"
"I know, but how many times do you think this is going to happen? I hope it's no more times because that we screwed up something else and need to fix that! I mean, I'd love to come back under better circumstances, but I don't think anyone here really likes me. Not too great when you consider that you come from a world that considers friendship and harmony as pillars of the community."
"Ah'm pretty sure that's just your view on that, but I am the Element of Honesty so ah don't know if I can argue that too well."
"Element of Honesty?" asked Togusa.
"Yep. It's a... representation of an ideal as well as a magical artifact where she's from. Basically, the artifact is one of six and each chooses a wielder based on the tenants of friendship. Applejack represented honesty so well that it bestowed itself upon her. But, dang it I'm getting off track again! We have a world ending threat going on and we need to fix it."
"He's right," said one chief Aramaki as he strode in from the elevator. "Despite his unusual demeanor, this young man is here to help fix a problem that we may not be capable of doing so ourselves. I doubt we could even find the problem in order to fix it."
"And I have that covered."
Having said that, I pulled the Eris coin from my pocket and held it so that everyone present could see it.
"This is my possibly sentient Swiss army knife. I can use it to track the location of the rift. Though, if anyone could tell me where Applejack arrived from last time that would cut down on the time it would take."
"I'm afraid we don't, though we could simply ask Vlad," Motoko responded.
"I'd rather not have to ask that slime bucket for anything," Danny followed with a touch of venom in his voice.
"Well we don't need to so this is it," I said while holding it out to look at it. "It gives a general direction, not distance or any other indicators. A 3-D model would be nice, but I don-"
I cut myself off as a small globe appeared over the the area of the coin. It didn't give a diagram of the building, but it did show distance and a direction in three dimensional terms. The strange part was that it was only about thirty feet away on the x-axis. That put it inside the area of the building I was inside.
"See what I mean? Sometimes she just does things after I say something out loud."
"She?"
"It's a coin that does things that confuse the hell out of me," I countered whomever said that. "Why wouldn't I consider it a woman?"
"That's not the important thing here," Aramaki interrupted. "The important part is that it seems to be indicating that rift originated in the portal room."
"The portal room?" I asked.
"Since it is important to our continued cooperation, it is specifically where we keep our portal to the Ghost Zone."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, you mean I'm going to get to go into the Ghost Zone?" I asked a bit giddily.
"It seems that you will young man... and young lady," he added as a courtesy to Applejack.
"This day is definitely turning in the right direction," I whispered.
"Major, Danny, I want you two and four others to form a team to escort these two into the Ghost Zone to help them seal up this rift. Take the Mark III Spectre Speeder and be ready within the hour."
"Yes sir!" "Yes sir!"
"And you two, especially you," he said pointing to me, "are to stay here and do nothing. You may be important in helping us fix this problem, but your presence here has been a major pain for most of time. When this is over, I want you two to leave as soon as possible. Is that clear?"
"Yes sir," I said dejectedly.
Man, way to be a buzzkill.