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“Are you sure we should be this close to the fight?” Arthur Kingsmen was whispering where he knelt behind Vivi Yukino, who in turn, knelt behind some sort of hedge. “We don't want to get in his way.”
“Shh! I don't want to miss the introduction.” Vivi flapped her hand in front of Arthur's face, not turning away from where she had her camera trained on the conflict breaking out between Amity Park's local Guardian Spirit, Danny Phantom, and another spirit who was loudly proclaiming that ‘It was He, Technus’ yada yada, monologue, threats, etcetera. Or maybe ectocetera, you know, because he was a ghost, heh? Heh?
On the sliding scale of how dangerous their quarries could be, threats in Amity Park usually scored relatively low. Danny Phantom kept them mostly under control, and he was a teenaged half-ghost. So, between that, and the fact that Vivi and hers rarely had to get involved, even Arthur acted relatively calm in Amity Park. Relatively. Meaning he'd probably still much rather not be crouching behind some decorative hydrangeas while two ghosts were slinging ectoplasm and general destruction less than 50ft away.
Lewis Pepper, their friendly neighbourhood vengeful wraith, was watching just as intently as Vivi. Although in his case, Vivi was pretty sure it had less to do with documenting paranormal activity, and more to do with him having taken a liking to the young halfa-ghost. Vivi and Arthur had bet money on how long Lewis would be able to resist trying to mother-hen the kid, who -by the way- already had a perfectly good family of his own and did not require Lewis' unique brand of persistent adoption.
As it was, Lewis seemed to be watching the kid like a hawk, despite the fact that Danny had fought many ghosts before, including this -particularly inept- one several times by his own accounting.
Vivi zoomed in on the action.
“… and I, Technus, will take over all the electronics, first in Amity Park, and then, the world!” The cyber ghost was declaring, as he pulled larger and more distant audiovisual equipment to himself to build some sort of Gundam-style Mecha-suit.
Danny was taking Technus' mech apart fairly efficiently, but could not seem to account for how fast he was gaining new pieces of ‘armor'.
Vivi thought that just sort of piling old brick computers on yourself was not the best use of ultimate power over any electronic device in a certain radius. This ghost could easily topple the entire world economy and information system with the proper inspiration, but he, like most ghosts, seemed trapped in a cycle of achieving a very specific goal. Technus seemed to be trapped in a cycle of desiring power, but had not once spoken of any plans on what he would do with that power once he had it or why he wanted it in the first place. Also, for a so-called ‘electronics' master, he seemed to have an incredibly rudimentary knowledge of what electronics were and what they could do. Like an AV club nerd from 40 years ago or something. She had a feeling that Danny's freshman techie friend, Tucker, had a better grasp of coding, hardware and scope of function in the broad category of ‘electronics' than this ghost did.
She was thanking her lucky stars that her camera was, apparently, analog enough to not fall under Technus' control, considering she was well within his radius. She shouldn't have even let the thought cross her mind, because as soon as she did, she heard a loud hum of electricity and a zap as it sparked behind her.
Lewis made a sound of concern and Vivi turned her head away from the fight to see Arthur wincing as he held his prosthetic at the elbow joint.
“Arthur?”
“I’m okay; just got zapped a bit. Might not even be related to him.” Arthur jerked his head at the scene in front of them. Vivi turned back to see that Danny's friends had shown up to assist, with Tucker setting up a disruptor program to prevent Technus from taking control of more machines. Now, Danny was just taking apart his mecha, piece by piece, with no more reinforcement pieces incoming.
One of Danny's lasers went a little wide and destroyed the top half of the hedge they were crouching behind.
Lewis shoved Arthur bodily to the ground, while Vivi crunched herself into a ball to disappear entirely behind the hedge again.
“Can we leave now?” Arthur poked his head up to look at the scene in front of him “It looks like it's almost over anyway."
Between trading barbs with Danny, Technus looked over in their direction. “Ah-HA!” the cyber ghost yelled. His mecha-suit collapsed instantaneously as he dropped control over them all at once.
He moved so quickly through the camera's field of view that Vivi heard what happened before she could see it.
Arthur cried out behind her; she turned so fast that she felt her neck twinge in protest. Arthur was clutching his prosthetic and looking, wide-eyed, at Lewis.
“L-Lewis?”
Arthur began to tremble, badly.
“I- I can't control- He's gonna-" Arthur’s eyes streamed tears, obvious where they washed away the dust on his face.
Lewis keened, reaching out to Arthur, sockets growing unnaturally wide in his skull. Arthur was cruelly snatched from his grasp as he was flung, arm first, high into the sky to float opposite of Danny.
“What will you do now? Ghost Boy?” the horrible nasal quality of Technus' voice overlayed onto Arthur's sweet tone. “I, Technus, have taken control of this human, and you cannot harm me while I control him!”
Lewis roared behind Vivi. She turned back frantically to see his skull and fists erupt in flames. She dove out of the way just in time to avoid the veritable sonic boom that he set off. The hedges erupted in magenta fire, burning away in seconds.
Danny, who had been preparing to say something suitably witty to Technus, now looked over at Lewis. He did not bother trying to disguise his fear when he looked between Technus overshadowing Arthur and Lewis on the ground.
“Lewis?!”
Lewis roared, flames flaring higher before he shot into the sky with Danny and Technus.
The Dead Beats, growing excited, began to sing. Their song, as usual, began with the amplified baseline set by Lewis' own anchor.
Danny looked around at all the pink blob ghosts in growing horror. He turned intangible and tried to dive through Arthur. Vivi wasn't sure what he was doing. Would he knock Technus out if he tried to overshadow Arthur instead? How many ghosts could one vessel hold? Probably only the one. It was a clever plan. Unfortunately, it was also a very, very stupid thing to do, directly in front of Lewis.
Lewis, blinded by anger, and unable to perform complicated thought in this state, dove in front of Danny, snarling. He caught the little half-ghost before he could touch Arthur and held him fast by the lapels.
The football stadium that they were in erupted in sharply contrasted violet light and depthless black. The electronic destruction wreaked by Technus disappeared under the solid illusion of a field of stalagmites, twisting caverns and cliffsides. Lewis himself now stood upon a cliff, the cliff, holding Danny over it.
Vivi had noticed, in their time since Lewis had been able to break his cycle, that in the few instances that Lewis fell back into it, this seemed to be his default illusion. Considering how many of his triggers had just been hit at once, she was not surprised that he'd instantly formed this one.
Danny looked down and behind him in horror, eyes wild when he looked back up at Lewis. Danny was not in any real danger from the illusions, Vivi thought, as long as he didn't switch back to his human form. However, she didn't actually know that for sure. At the very least, he couldn't be dropped while he still retained the ability to fly.
“Lewis! I'm trying to help you! I can get Technus out if you just let” Danny struggled in Lewis' hold. “Me.” He bashed his fist down, ineffectually, against Lewis much larger arm. “GO!” He did some complicated twisting motion that unfastened Lewis' grip and sent Danny careening off into the sky away from him.
Lewis glared after him for a moment, but turned back to Technus, who was looking around the illusory space with a contemplative eye. As soon as the cliff had manifested, Arthur’s body -being more beholden to gravity than Technus was used to- had settled, standing, on the solid illusion.
“A fellow enemy of the Ghost Boy, I see!” Technus assumed wrongly “Have you come to join forces with I, Technus, master of machines, to destroy the ghost boy?!”
“Get Out" A distorted and beastly voice echoed through the caverns, amplifying to crash against where Lewis and Technus faced off.
Vivi looked frantically around for Danny, and saw him pushing himself off the wall he'd been flung into. He rubbed the back of his head and Vivi could see a scratch on his cheek where it had caught against a sharp stone. I guess Lewis' illusions can affect ghosts and humans. Part of her was ecstatic at the opportunity to witness how Lewis’ abilities manifested in such an ectoplasmic energy rich space. An ever-so-slightly larger part was terrified for both of her dearest friends and this teenager who had too much on his plate already at such a young age.
“Danny!” Vivi shouted up at him, but she was drowned out by Danny's own friends yelling the same thing.
Danny looked frantically over to them. “Better look for cover, guys! Things are about to get messy!” he yelled down at his young friends.
Vivi called over to them. “Over here! I can protect you, even when he's like this! He won't hurt me!” Vivi waved at them. Sam and Tucker looked to Danny for guidance. He was already flying over to her on his own, so they ran after him.
Once Sam and Tucker were crouched next to Vivi, hiding behind some stalagmites, Danny landed in front of her as well.
“What's happening?!” The young ghost demanded.
“Lewis got triggered when that cyber freak possessed Arthur! He's flipped back into his obsession for vengeance.” Vivi explained, managing eye contact with him for only a few moments between casting her gaze to the cliff to see what Lewis was doing to Arthur's body.
“How can we calm him down?” Tucker asked from where he hid behind Sam.
“Sometimes seeing me will do it.” Vivi said. “I think, in this case, we have to make sure Arthur is safe before he’ll really be able to calm down.”
“He won't let me near him!” Danny gestured angrily with one arm at the two figures above them.
Vivi let her gaze follow the gesture upwards and could make out Technus seemingly trying to convince Lewis to join him or serve him. Vivi looked around her at the huge display of power from Lewis and wondered what about that seemed to make the cyber ghost think that he would be in charge of Lewis.
“Is there a way to get Technus out without possessing Arthur?” Vivi asked. “Seeing you try to get in him will only make Lewis angrier.”
“I'm not possessing him!” Danny cried “I'll pop right back out immediately. It's more like phasing through him.”
“Great for you, but Lewis can't understand that right now. To him, you're just another threat to Arthur.” Vivi snapped back at him, nervously watching as Lewis was losing patience with listening to Technus.
“Danny, you can't let Lewis hurt Arthur, do you understand?” Vivi pleaded desperately.
“I thought Lewis was trying to protect Arthur. Why would he hurt him?” Sam sounded disdainful, but Vivi had concluded that was her default state.
Vivi didn't have time to explain this. “The longer Lewis is in that state, the more likely he is to attack Arthur, especially while Arthur's not acting like himself.”
“If that happens.” Vivi continued. “If Lewis actually hurts Arthur, all Hell is going to break loose.”
Danny looked around meaningfully at the technicolour rocky wasteland that Lewis had made out of their school stadium. “Worse than this?”
“Considering this is what he does when he's still reachable, my bets are on much worse.” Vivi imparted. “And that's not even including what I'm going to do if my boys get hurt.”
“Ok, ok, sheesh.” Danny said. “What do you think, Tucker? Can we break the hold Technus has over Arthur some other way? He got in because of the arm, right?”
“I'm honestly not even sure how Technus got into his arm.” Tucker said, consulting his PDA. “On a hardware level, Arthur's arm is just super lightweight metal. On a software level, it’s basically just patched into Arthur's existing nervous system. He's the software. Technus shouldn't have been able to access him any easier than any other person that was around.”
“Bad luck.” Vivi muttered. Sam looked at her, brows furrowed in confusion, but the boys didn't seem to hear.
While Tucker and Danny bounced ideas off each other, Vivi looked back up to the illusory cliff where Lewis was facing down Technus.
“I will only say this one more time.” Lewis’ ‘voice' echoed through the caves again.
“Get out of him”
“This human is an incredible advantage over the Ghost Boy that I, Technus, have secured! With your magnificent battlefield manipulation techniques, we can use this human as our hostage to make whatever demands we want! I, Technus, will fly this body over your spikes and threaten to drop him. The Ghost Boy will not be able to resist our demands!”
“Oh fuuuuck.” Vivi said. The three teenagers turned as one to look at her and then followed her gaze up.
Lewis' voice roared through the caves, echoing and magnifying upon itself to the point that Vivi had to cover her ears or fear permanent hearing loss.
Lewis' hands erupted in flame and he dove directly for Technus, easily tackling him to the floor.
Danny had to abandon planning and fly back up into the fray.
From where she stood, she could only see Danny's silhouette, backlit by the rising wall of purple flame in front of him.
“Danny!” Sam cried out next to her.
“Does Lewis have any weaknesses?” Tucker asked frantically. He seemed to be patching his PDA into the stadium loudspeaker, which had miraculously remained untouched during both Technus' battle and Lewis' eruption.
Vivi's entire being recoiled at the idea of spilling Lewis’ secrets to a bunch of teenagers that they barely knew. They're good kids. She reminded herself. They wouldn't even be trying to hurt Lewis now if it weren't for her asking.
“His Anchor. That golden heart in his chest. If it's damaged, his illusions will fade and if it's damaged enough he has to retreat inside it.”
“Danny, aim for the heart!” Tucker said into his PDA, projecting his voice over the Stadium loudspeaker so Danny could hear him over the intense musical wailing of the Dead Beats.
“No, wait!” Vivi yelled. “If it gets too damaged, he might never be able to come back at all!”
“Scratch that.” Tucker was saying over the loud speaker, just as Danny was taking aim at Lewis' anchor with his ecto laser thing. “Aim for the heart, but gently."
Danny switched to a single finger that he pointed at Lewis’s heart and fired. The illusion flickered briefly, but didn't fade.
“Not that gentle.” Tucker quipped over the loud speaker.
Lewis turned his attention back from Technus in Arthur's body to Danny. Lewis was quivering with rage and the Dead Beats’ music reached a segment of piano and accelerando.
“Hey, Lewis. I know you're in there, big guy.” Danny was holding his hands up and calmly floating in place, even as Lewis floated towards him, sockets narrowed in rage. “It's just me. Danny. I don't want to hurt you, and I don't want to hurt Arthur, okay?”
Lewis' flames simmered and his illusion stopped flickering, becoming steadier. He continued to approach Danny.
“I'm sorry I just shot you. That was my bad.” Danny waved his hands in front of him.
Lewis stopped directly in front of Danny, towering over him.
“I can help you. Actually help you. I can force Technus out of Arthur, okay? It's gonna look scary when I do it, but I promise he'll be okay and under his own power in no time.”
Weird whispers bounced off the smooth walls, echoing over and around each other before they reached Danny's ears.
Trust him? How can we trust him? We trusted that one and then look where
Arthur that got us? Dead dead killed killed he murdered ush he'll do it again what's to
stop him?he wouldn't couldn't didn't did It wasn't him it was
someone else . He's not himself. Dear sweet A r tHU r. He ‘s gonna hurt
him. I can't let him hurt him.
Lewis let out a distorted cry of anguish and held his own skull between his bony hands. Danny could hear tiny crackles and the whine that stiff objects made when they were struggling not to break under pressure. The illusion flickered dangerously around them.
Danny knew enough about electronic music to recognize in the pink blob ghosts' melody that the base was about to drop. Then, it did. And, by that, Danny meant that the actual rock outcropping that they were standing on flickered long and hard enough that it disappeared. Lewis and Danny were unaffected by this, floating as they were, but Arthur's body was a different story.
“Arthur!” Danny reached out a hand towards Arthur's rapidly descending body. He could hear Vivi's piercing scream even over the sudden fortissimo in the music. Lewis made a noise like a scream muffled under a thick cloak, or perhaps 6 feet of dirt, as he whirled around and saw Arthur falling.
Amidst the sound of an echoing crack, like one of the stalagmites detaching, or a chunk breaking off the larger iceberg, Danny tried to fly as fast as he could toward Arthur's body. He knew, immediately, he wouldn't be fast enough. The illusion was flickering perfectly in time with the driving beat of the blob ghosts' music. Hellish wasteland, stadium, wasteland, stadium. If they were lucky, maybe Arthur would hit the ground during one of the flashes of stadium. Danny didn't want to think about what would happen when a stalagmite would shove itself into being, directly where Arthur's body was laying. A blast of heat erupted next to him in a bright flash of purple light that left spots in his vision.
By time his vision cleared, purple flames had erupted in front of him, next to Arthur, and formed into Lewis' skeletal form. The huge ghost caught Arthur's body a foot from the tip of a flashing stalagmite and crushed the small form into his chest, trilling in panic. Danny stopped his breakneck flight and breathed in relief.
Then Technus decided to go and complicate everything again. Using Arthur's metal arm, Technus grabbed Lewis' anchor and tore it away from his figure. Lewis' trilling ramped up into a horrible shrieking, and Danny watched in horror as Technus squeezed the cracked and gray heart (had it always looked like that? Wasn't it gold before? Danny's little laser couldn’t have done that much damage, could it?) in his metal fist. Stress fractures popped up where the metal fingers crushed and Lewis seemed to be shrinking and recoiling. Danny could see that his arms were about to open and drop Arthur's body onto the flickering stalagmite he'd just rescued him from.
Now or never, Phantom.
Danny turned invisible and intangible and shot himself through Arthur's body in a football tackle. He caught hold of Technus' ghostly form, concentrated strangely into Arthur's arm for no discernible reason, and sailed through with a death grip (heh) on him. He forced them both back into tangibility as they exited Arthur. Stinging pain erupted on his cheeks and arms as he somersaulted through Lewis' pulsating stalagmites, narrowly keeping both himself and Technus between individual formations. He heard a metallic clang behind him, and frantically turned to see if Lewis had dropped Arthur after all. He saw, with some measure of relief, that it was only Arthur who'd gone slack, dropping Lewis' (intact, thank God) anchor between the rock formations as he passed out.
Danny opened his thermos as quickly as he could. Technus, in his much-diminished ghostly form, was trying to scramble away from Danny on his hands and ‘knees'. “No! You shall never contain I, Technus, master of the mechanical, he who holds dominion over all things electrical!”
Danny caught him by the whisp that served as legs and hauled Technus back towards himself.
“Trust me.” Danny said, catching a note of rage in his own voice. “You’re going to be a lot happier in there than you will be out here with him.” Danny moved a bit to the side so Technus could look past Danny and see Lewis' skeletal form hunched over Arthur, distracted from seeking revenge only by his drive to protect his loved ones.
Technus screamed denials and scrabbled at the flickering floor as he was slowly dragged into Danny's thermos. Danny sealed it tight as Technus disappeared inside and turned back to face Lewis, fearing what state he'd be in.
Danny hadn't known the older ghost for very long, and while he'd always been able to sense how powerful he was, he had never seen it manifest, before today. He didn't know how far Lewis could be pushed before he couldn't come back from the edge. He didn't even know which aspects of everything that had happened today had been pushes and which had been lifelines.
Skeleton ghosts were powerful and frightening. They didn't last long, even in the Ghost Zone, unless their obsessions could be channeled into something useful. The Fright Knight was one example; only prevented from complete madness and destruction by channeling his obsession to serve his King. Lewis was, or had been, extremely well adjusted. Danny had attributed that to him being only recently dead, and not being able to fester for too long before he was pulled out of his revenge cycle. Apparently, Lewis still had some way to go before he could truly be considered a ‘non-threat’.
At least he's trying. Danny thought. His vision blurred and Danny swiped at his eye, trying to get whatever dust had settled in it out. His hand hit something wet and sticky and he brought it quickly to his face to look at it. Green goo? Did he have ectoplasm in his hair? He ran a nervous hand through his white fringe and brought it to his face again to look. No. Didn't seem like it.
“Lewis?” He called gently, not wanting to startle the wraith into another eruption. Blob ghosts, no longer singing, hovered around Lewis, occasionally swooping in to rub against his arm or nuzzle into his shoulder and neck. Danny could see Arthur's wild fringe and slack legs on either side of Lewis' powerful frame. Arthur did not stir.
Danny picked his way carefully through the flickering stalagmites. They faded more and more on each appearance, beginning to look more like afterimages than solid illusions. Danny still avoided them, the imaginary vision of a stalagmite manifesting in occupied space, and horribly splicing whatever had been there before, lingering in his thoughts.
“Lewis?” He tried again, looking desperately over to where Vivi had been standing with Sam and Tucker. Shouldn't she be out here trying to talk Lewis down, now that they were all relatively safe? Why was Danny doing it?
Lewis trilled slightly where he knelt, holding Arthur. Danny slowly made his way around so that he could approach them from the front. He felt a jolt in his guts, looking at them. Arthur looked small and pale in Lewis' massive ghostly arms. He lay completely limp, head barely kept upright by Lewis' ‘bicep'. In front of them both was Lewis' anchor, dark grey and pulsing slowly, a deep crack running through it and several smaller fissures spiraling out from that. Danny had half expected it to be misshapen from where Arthur's metal hand had clutched it, but it seemed to hold only cracks. Lewis, himself, was making a sustained keening noise. His head was tilted down towards Arthur and away from Danny.
The Anchor cracked again where it lay in the dirt. The noise startled Lewis into looking up and Danny saw tears black as ichor dripping down his skull. His sockets widened upon recognizing Danny and he made another panicked noise, reaching out to Danny as well. Danny's reflexes for leaning away from potentially hostile individuals who wanted to grab him were remarkably bad for his line of extracurricular activities, and it was only this that prevented him from leaning away from Lewis' grasping hand.
However, when all Lewis did was pull Danny down onto his knees with them and into a bone-crushing hug, Danny was glad he hadn't managed to escape.
Mushed up against Arthur's side, Danny could feel his chest rise and fall in the slow rhythm of the sleeping. Lewis released Danny from the hug fairly quickly and made an urgent noise at him, pointing to Danny's forehead.
“Huh?” Danny reached up and swiped at his own forehead, feeling his hand come away tacky and wet. He looked down again and saw more of the green goo from before. “What the-?”
He smacked his hand against his forehead again, frantically trying to find the source of the goo, and had to wince in pain as he rubbed against what seemed to be an open cut.
“Oh.” Danny said, feeling around the small scrape. “It's okay, just a little cut. Dunno why it's bleeding so bad.”
Lewis reached up a hand and knocked it against his own exposed skull.
“Head? Head wound? It's because it's on my head?”
Lewis nodded at him. He pointed down to Arthur and made a questioning trill.
“Arthur?” Danny checked. Lewis nodded.
“He'll be okay, most humans are a little…” Danny tilted his hand back and forth in the universal ‘so-so' sign “after a possession.”
Lewis trilled again, apparently in alarm. His blob ghosts whirled around him faster, all crowding in to nuzzle him again.
Lewis shifted his grip on Arthur so that he was mostly sitting upright, leaning on Lewis, and grabbed at Danny again to pull him back into a hug. Lewis was making a cooing noise that sounded vaguely apologetic.
“It's okay.” Danny assured him, awkwardly patting the older, arguably more powerful, and much larger ghost on the back. “Everyone has bad days. And- and no one got hurt in the end.” He mumbled awkwardly, feeling like an absolute idiot. Again, why was some 14-year-old dumbass being left to console a ravaged spirit? Where was Vivi? Or even Sam, who was way better equipped to deal with emotional turmoil than he was. (No, not because she was a girl, thank-you-very-much. Danny just had a chronic case of foot-in-mouth disease and Sam didn't, okay?)
The blob ghosts squeezed in to the tangle of arms, tickling Danny when he felt them against his ribs and armpits. He shifted and giggled while they moved around him and he watched in amazement as they created tiny little pink band aids in the shape of…. Llamas?? And removed the non-stick coverings to gently press the bandages against Danny's forehead, cheek, and even a few on his arms. Danny was sure most of the band aids were not necessary, as the tiny scrapes must have already clotted, but he let the blob ghosts do their thing.
Arthur finally stirred in Lewis' arms. He began to hold himself up, instead of rag dolling against Lewis. Lewis frantically changed back into his ‘human' form before Arthur slowly blinked open his eyes. Danny rather wished he hadn't, because now he was looking at a human face crumpled up and flushed from crying rather than just ichor dripping down a skull. The human guise also flickered oddly like the illusion had been before. Huh. Guess that explained that weird quirk of Lewis' abilities. His human guise was just another solid illusion crafted from his memories of himself.
Arthur woozily looked up at Lewis. “Lew?” Arthur moaned and shifted himself oddly in Lewis' hold. Up close, Danny could see his expression go confused and then understanding. Arthur glanced down at where his metal arm hung limply.
“Uggggh, fuuuuck. My head.” Arthur palmed over his eyes with his flesh hand, brow furrowed hard and pinched the bridge of his nose. He kept his eyes squinted shut. “I'm gonna have to do a full overhaul of the arm too, cocksucker.”
Lewis made a trilling noise that rose at the end like a question.
Arthur dropped his arm from his own face, and instead reached up to caress Lewis' cheek.
Danny's face burned and he frantically turned his gaze away and tried to escape Lewis' hold to escape the gross goo goo eyes they were making at each other. Lewis let Danny go and Danny flumped into the dust, leaning away from the two men. It, unfortunately, wasn't far enough away to avoid catching Arthur's soft-spoken words and Lewis' purring.
“I'm okay, Lew. I feel a little bit like shit, but I'll be okay. You can drop the face, boo, I'm not scared of you.”
Lewis made a keening noise and dropped the human disguise. Arthur smiled up at him with a tired and -embarrassing, so embarrassing, don't they know how embarrassing they are? - dazzlingly sweet smile.
“I'm sorry if I scared you.” Arthur was murmuring to Lewis, hand still resting on Lewis' ‘cheek', his thumb caressing the ridge of bone that formed his cheekbones and separated his eye sockets from the empty space below his maxilla. (Why can I remember ‘maxilla’, but not the under-eye bone? What did Mrs. Mulder call it? Infraorbital ridge? That means ‘below eye' right?[1])
Danny had never thought he'd desperately be trying to remember his biology classes in order to avoid thinking about two adults making kissy faces at each other after battling a ghost, but here he was.
Can Lewis make kissy faces? Can Lewis kiss? I suppose his human disguise has lips… what about his- nope nope nope nope, not going there, brain, thanks.
Lewis was making his purring noise to try and reassure Arthur. Danny wished it could be more subvocal than it was, so Danny didn't have to hear it.
The Blob Ghosts made that wish null and void when they started up singing a song. It was a lot more ‘driving punk rock’ than the usual ‘Electronic Funk'. Danny tuned out most of the lyrics, which seemed to be about ghosts -which was a little on the nose, he thought- but had to appreciate the ingenuity when the blob ghosts belted out ‘I'm not scared for me, I'm scared for you.’ and faded the music out shortly after a line about being dead.
Arthur trembled finely in Lewis' arms. Breaths rushing in and out quicker than Danny thought was healthy. The blob ghosts rushed in to snuggle Arthur on all sides and mimicked the slow inhale and exhale of calm breaths while Lewis smoldered gently, still holding Arthur.
Arthur was able to muster control over his overactive lungs. He nuzzled into Lewis shoulder, deeply shadowed eyes closing as he rested against his ghostly boyfriend, breathing gently.
“Danny!” Finally, Sam and Tucker appeared from their hiding place, running over with an extremely pale Vivi trailing behind them.
Arthur looked up at the noise and caught sight of Lewis' anchor still lying in the dirt. He dropped his hand from Lewis' face and reached out for it, frowning. Danny held his breath, warily watching Arthur reach for the poor cracked Anchor.
As soon as Arthur laid his finger on it and brought it close to their faces, it popped open like a locket. Danny could see a colourful picture inside it from where he sat and while Arthur held it and Lewis looked at it, the largest cracks began to disappear and the Anchor started glowing faintly.
Sam and Tucker had hesitated to approach them when Arthur reached for the anchor, but seeing that it didn't set Lewis off again, they continued their jog over to Danny. Danny mustered a veneer of nonchalance around himself to ward off their worry. “Where have you guys been? I had to talk Lewis down by myself.”
“Nice Band-Aids.” Tucker said, and Danny felt his face heat again at the reminder of the state of his face and the blob ghosts' particular taste in medical equipment.
When Vivi finally reached them and collapsed to her knees in front of Lewis and Arthur, Lewis opened his arms to scoop her into the hug. She kissed both Lewis and Arthur on their heads.
“Vivi fainted when Arthur fell.” Sam answered his earlier question. “We were taking care of her.”
Danny looked back over to Vivi in Lewis' embrace and saw her neon blue jacket contrasting starkly against Lewis' black on one side where she'd thrown her arms around him and Arthur.
“What happened to Technus?” Sam asked warily, glancing around them as if he was going to pop out again.
Danny knocked a fist against his thermos. “I'm considering siccing Walker on him after the shit he just pulled.” Danny confessed darkly.
“Yikes.” Tucker said and Sam grimaced.
“He…” Danny glanced over to the trio still clinging desperately to each other and lowered his voice. “He used Arthur’s hand to try and crush Lewis' anchor.”
“You're kidding.” Sam said, voice echoing in dull horror.
“That's messed up, man.” Tucker pronounced.
“I know.” Danny said, eyes darting over to the Mystery Skulls again. “If I hadn't been worried about how much it would mess Lewis up, I might have let him have a go at Technus when he wasn't using Arthur as a shield.”
“That was a low blow.” Tucker agreed “Even for Technus. Who uses civilians as a meat shield?”
“Yeah, that seemed really unlike him. Skulker? Maybe.” Danny said, also thinking of several of the younger looking ghosts like Ember, Johnny 13 and Kitty.
“Skulker definitely.” Tucker agreed.
“If they're escalating again, maybe it's time I play another visit to the ghost-zone” Danny said.
While they ironed out details, Vivi crushed her boys against her in the biggest hug she could manage. She pushed Arthur's hair out of his eyes to get a look at his pupils. They seemed even enough, but still a bit unfocused. His prosthetic arm hung uselessly from his shoulder, clearly fried and unresponsive.
Lewis moaned softly, looking at the damage.
“I said I'm fine. I can use an old prototype while I fix myself up a new one.” Arthur assured them both. He reached out to wrap a strand of Vivi's hair around his finger and tugged on it gently. Usually, she would get huffy when he messed up her hair, but this time, she just let him hold it.
“Where's Lewis' anchor?” She asked, looking around them.
Lewis moved his arm from around Arthur's back and opened his hand up to show Vivi the deeply cracked anchor sitting in his palm.
“Oh, Lewis.” She reached out for his anchor and he let her. She traced a finger down the largest crack and the anchor hummed warmly beneath her touch. Slowly the crack started to close in and tiny fissures retreated fully into the center to disappear. The heart started to gleam golden again and pulse rhythmically. “We'll have Mystery take a look at it to make sure it's okay.” She said.
Lewis keened in thanks and hugged them tighter.
Vivi basked in the warmth and security of Lewis’ arms for a moment before she heard a pointed throat clearing behind them. She pulled out of the hug to look at Danny, blushing, covered in pink alpaca band aids and looking above their heads as he waited.
“Are you okay, Danny?” Vivi asked, standing to take a look at him. He had transformed back into his human form, which made his wounds look even more garish. She noted, with amusement, that the Dead Beats had gone a little overboard with the band aids.
“Oh, uh, yeah. Great. But, what, was all that?” Danny looked meaningfully over to Lewis, who was helping Arthur to stand on legs that still trembled slightly.
Vivi sighed and looked at Lewis. He met her eyes and offered a small shrug to let her know she was free to share as much as she thought was necessary.
“About 4 or 5 years ago, we… got into some stuff we shouldn’t have. We were exploring a cave that had a lot of mysterious rumors going around about it. There was some thing in there that took control of Arthur and made him… kill Lewis.”
“Holy shit, seriously?” Sam said, looking in horror between Lewis and Arthur, and then between Tucker and Danny.
Vivi nodded, swallowing hard and glaring hard at Danny’s shirt to try and stop herself from crying as she told the story.
“A lot of stuff happened.” Vivi managed, not wanting to go into details about Arthur’s injury, or their desperate search across the country, or her and Lance’s glances across the table when Arthur would disappear in his room for days without eating or speaking. “Eventually we found out that Lewis had come back as a Wraith. He didn’t know about the possession. He thought Arthur had killed him.”
The look of horror had spread over Tucker and Danny’s faces as well, now.
“His cycle was a weird, messed up mixture of protecting me and getting vengeance on Arthur.” Vivi continued, falling into a more distant scientific report mode. It was easier to think about it that way. All nice and compartmentalized “Once Lewis realized what had really happened, he broke out of his cycle. He could have passed on then, but… well, his anchor was linked to me, and Arthur, and at least half of those feelings; the ones about wanting to protect me, still existed. So, he was able to stay, and transfer those protective feelings to Arthur as well. As long as one of us is alive to be protected, Lewis is able to stay here without being beholden to his revenge cycle.”
“Christ.” Danny breathed. “So, when Technus took over Arthur… and that’s why the caves. I’m so sorry. Technus doesn’t usually overshadow people.”
“Danny” Vivi stopped him before he could become too guilty. “It’s fine. We knew things could be dangerous and we weren’t careful enough. That was a mistake on our part, not yours. Thank you, for your help, with Lewis.”
“His… anchor looked really bad.” Danny hedged, looking concerned and a little guilty. “Is he going to be okay?”
Lewis trilled to get Danny’s attention and Danny turned to look at Lewis, who was holding out his repaired anchor.
“Whoa!” Danny said, reaching out to it, but retracting his hand as soon as he realized what he was doing. “Uh, that was fast.”
Lewis made a happy bloop noise and clicked the locket open to show Danny the picture of the Mystery Skulls all inside. Danny furrowed his brows while he looked at it.
“Huh, that’s good, I guess.” Danny said, still looking bewildered.
“We’re really sorry for the extra trouble, Danny” Vivi said. “Thank you, for having faith in Lewis.”
“Huh?” Danny blushed and ran his hands through his fringe nervously. “O-oh, yeah, sure, no problem, I mean, what kind of benevolent spirit would I be if I couldn’t give someone the benefit of the doubt. Especially with a record as good as Lewis’” Danny laughed awkwardly, perhaps realizing he sounded like Lewis’ probation officer or something.
A wave of exhaustion washed over Vivi and she remembered that Arthur needed to repair his arm and Lewis still needed to get a spiritual check-up from Mystery. They made their goodbyes and took their leave to go back to the Mystery Mobile.
Mystery sat dutifully inside the passenger seat, and wagged his tail, hopping up on the window as the three remaining Skulls unlocked the van and started piling in. Mystery snuffled at them all, nuzzling into Vivi once she’d sat down.
Arthur took one look at all the parts for his arm tucked away in their box, promptly turned away, unclipped his broken one and flopped face first onto the bedding they had set out in the back of the van.
Vivi let out a sigh and enjoyed the simple company of dog-Mystery for a moment before she told him what had happened.
With Mystery alerted and fussing over Lewis’s anchor, Vivi finally let herself close her eyes and take a rest.
[1] It's called the zygomatic arch, folks. You're welcome for saving all of you a trip to google.