Negative Feedback (Danny Phantom Fic)

Chapter 14

"Special delivery!" 

"Wha--? Aah!" 

Skulker shouted as he was sent careening into a wide tree trunk from a sturdy blow to his back. Being the tough hunter he always claimed to be, he was on his feet a second later and whipping out a laser gun to fight back. Hovering a few feet above the ground was Danny, looking incredibly peeved and ready to go at least a few rounds mano-a-ghosto with Skulker. 

"What are you doing here, ghost brat?" Skulker demanded, taking aim. "Oh, wait, that's right. It doesn't matter!" He pulled the trigger, sending a ray of electricity Phantom's way. He easily sidestepped it and dove in, fist pulled back in preparation to send Skulker flying once more. 

"I hope you realize you're just handing yourself over to me," Skulker commented as he rose again, brushing dirt off of his robotic arms. "There's no way you can beat me, whelp."

"Guess again, nut job," Danny bantered, turning invisible and slipping underneath the soil to come up firing an ectoblast at Skulker's rear end. He created a graceful, rainbow-like arc through the air, even as his arms and legs flailed around uselessly. "Heheh, get it? Like nuts and bolts?"

"Hilarious, Danny," Sam commented sarcastically, safe in the Specter Speeder with Tucker a few dozen yards back from the fight. "Can you just get to the point, though? We have English homework."

"Okay, okay. But that felt good anyway," he justified, popping his shoulder joint before flying over to where Skulker was once again picking himself up from the dirt. "Alright, Skulker. Where are you hiding her?"

"Hiding who?" the hunter retorted, glaring at his teenage enemy. "I don't have a clue what you're going on about."

"Don't play dumb," Danny said, his eyebrows drawn close together with determination. "You know exactly who I'm talking about. Where's Camry?" 

"Are you talking about the spirette?" he asked, looking entirely and honestly confused. "You think I have her?" 

"You were the one hunting her," Danny pointed out, dropping down to stand on the ground and keeping his arms folded over his chest. "Who else would have taken her?" 

It was a rhetorical question, but Skulker answered it anyway. "As a spirette, any and all ghosts would target her. It's narrow-minded of you to assume I would be the only one." 

"As if you can talk about narrow-minded, Mr. 'I will have your pelt on my wall if it's the last thing I do,'" Danny quipped. "But what exactly do you mean? Every ghost would hunt her?" 

Skulker's face settled into a deadpan. "You don't really expect me to be the only one. Spirettes are rare and valuable to ghosts of all kinds-- not just the hunters." 

"How exactly are they 'valuable?'" Tucker asked over the speeder's speaker system; he used both hands to make air quotes around the adjective. 

~

"Wait, what? Can you say that one more time?" Camry asked, her fiery eyes wide in both surprise and confusion. 

"The reason ghosts are after you is because they see you as a potential henchman," Dora repeated. "Well, perhaps 'henchwoman' is more accurate. You did just ask why ghosts are after you."

"But how does that work? Why would I work with someone who tries to kidnap me?" she asked, using rather exaggerated gestures with her hands and arms as she talked. 

Dora let out a deep breath before launching into a more in-depth explanation. "When a spirette's core fully develops, they lose their memories of being a spirette and take on the personality dictated by their quality of feedback. Our cores... they are what hold us together and make us what we are as ghosts. I can't remember what it was like to be a spirette at all, though it was so long ago that there's really no use in trying."