For Danny Day of Angst 2012. Written a while ago, so I apologize for any mistakes.

Young Blood

October 1, 2012

She tumbled head-over-heels with a grunt and an oomph until her momentum finally died. She didn't come to a stop against anything since there wasn't really anything there for her to come to a stop against. She was just floating in the air until the initial push didn't push her further.

Spectra grit her teeth as she righted herself and smoothed out the non-existent wrinkles in her blood red suit. She glanced behind her, but the metal doors of the Fenton Portal were closed, genetically locked down.

She wouldn't be able to get back any time soon.

Not that she particularly wanted to try only to be sucked into a Fenton thermos and dumped unceremoniously back into the Zone a few minutes after she had gotten there, but it would have been nice to slip back in and give Phantom a piece of her mind.

It really was quite unfair of him to stop her fun before she actually got anywhere or found anyone to replenish her nearly empty energy store. She hadn't even technically done anything yet this last visit. She and Bertrand were just keeping one of his classmates company; she hadn't begun to feed, hadn't really had a chance to start talking yet.

One minute she had started her therapy session and the next—boom!—Bertrand was in a thermos and she had to hightail it out of there to avoid the same fate. Not that it lasted for long—the morbid girl had used her own thermos to take her down while the geek distracted her.

Who ever made Phantom the policeman of Amity Park? The ghosts certainly didn't. The kid hadn't even been in existence for much more than a year or two. Besides, he was a halfa, not even a true ghost. And he thought that he could rule over the entire city of Amity Park and do whatever he felt like. She couldn't even step out of the portal to get a breath of fresh air without being blasted.

He had gotten much better over the months. He was much more effective and accurate now than he was back when she had first encountered him. She sometimes regretted counseling at Casper High. Not because it was a bad place for emotions, because it wasn't, on the contrary, she couldn't ask for anything more, but because of that incident, Phantom had a personal grudge against her. She used to be able to live for weeks in the human world before anyone knew who she was and made sure to send her back to this swirling expanse at the first glimpse of her.

Bertrand would know to meet back up at her lair, so she didn't have to worry about tracking him down, thank goodness. She didn't want to have to deal with that headache right now. Danny had really done a number on her today. What she really needed was an energy pick-me-up but the best place to find that was in the real world and she couldn't get back through the portal because that was where this whole fiasco had started. Not that she particularly wanted to go back even if she could.

She didn't want to face anything remotely dangerous without recovering first. But there weren't many good places to do that around here. Most of the ghosts were either too powerful for her to feed off of or knew her well enough to take off like a bullet when they saw her coming.

A weak spirit she wouldn't scare off immediately would not be likely to be flying around this area anyway. Too close to the portal… well… she supposed she was pretty far from the portal now… she had been flying for quite a while… and she didn't actually know where she was at the moment… Spectra stopped to look around her. She had been wandering aimlessly to try to blow off some steam.

It took her a while to realize where she was. It had been a long time since she had visited this part of the Zone; it must have been before the portal opened. But before that, she used to be a regular visitor. Oh yes, she smiled. She used to come here quite often to have little chats with a certain ghost and she always left feeling rejuvenated.

How perfect. Just when she needed another of these sessions, she happened to come back to the right place. Gotta love the subconscious. Maybe this wasn't going to be such a bad day for her after all…

She went off with a purpose now, darting past the dark swirling clouds of ectoplasm that grew steadily darker until she came upon a series of rolling, floating hills. The further into them she went, the darker and more still the air seemed to become. Dark skeleton trees began to appear on the island hills until she found herself practically in the middle of a bizarre and twisted forest.

She knew she was getting close when she began to hear yelling, far off. Following quickly on its heels was the sound of metal clashing and shrill yells accompanying it.

In reply, a nasally voice seemed quite put out and there was a loud shrieking squawk.

A burst of short, childish laughter, followed again by a booming noise and more shouts.

She was getting closer, and as she did so, the plan she had been mulling over began to perfect itself in her mind. She would be able to get her pick-me-up without any problems. It wasn't as good as getting it from a human, but it would definitely be good for her. It would work, too. She knew from experience...

"Ahhh! Take that! And that!"

Spectra grinned and flew faster until she finally pulled up and landed on one of the hill islands.

"Ahoy!"

The yelling stopped. The voice, youthful and curious, came over the hill. "Who be there?" Then, it became excited as a new thought occurred to it. "Will you play with me?"

"Oh bother…" deadpanned a raspy voice nearby.

Spectra did not answer, but walked closer to the voice and waited with a mischievous smile.

The face belonging to the voice popped his head over the hill to see who had come when she didn't answer him. It was a round face surrounded by a sea of green hair, topped with a pirate hat.

He recognized her immediately.

His eyes went wide and he lost all desire to play. He began to scramble backwards as Spectra rose up and followed him.

His sidekick, the skeleton parrot who provided the straight man to their continuous comic routine, squawked when he recognized the female ghost and promptly took off, having no desire to see her or whatever she was planning any time soon. He disregarded the young boy's pleas not to leave him, but soared over the islands until he was lost to sight.

The boy panicked when he realized that he was alone and she was still walking toward him.

"Ahh! No, stop! Get away from me!"

He turned, ready to follow his companion when Spectra suddenly lunged forward and grabbed him by both arms, twisting him until he was sitting on the island with his back to the hill.

She looked down at him amused when he looked frantically around him for some means or method of escaping her. He didn't find one.

He couldn't remember why, but he knew that every bone in his small body was screaming for him to get away from the lady in red.

But she was so much bigger and stronger than he was. She was smarter and she knew what she wanted and how to get it. He couldn't get away from her no matter how hard he kicked or twisted.

Spectra was familiar with the whole routine. She had been through it many times, not lately, it was true, but often enough that she knew what to expect and how to deal with every eventuality.

She was prepared, but it amused her to no end when she realized that her young patient had completely forgotten about their early therapy sessions. He seemed to have to no recollection of who she was or what she wanted, although it was quite clear that he did not like or trust her.

During her later visits, he would have mentally prepared himself so that it made it harder for her to feed off of him. One time, she had gotten so annoyed at how hard it was that she left. Shortly after that, the portal had opened for the first time and she had no need to continue her visits. But now he had forgotten all about her. This was going to be so easy and fun because she had not forgotten a thing about him.

Youngblood finally accepted his fate and sat still. He shivered and lost the last of his brave pirate façade. He was nothing but a poor, young boy who was lost, looking up at her with huge terrified eyes. He looked even smaller than he was as he drowned under the ridiculously massive pirate hat. It made him appear more vulnerable.

"What do you want with me?" he finally found the voice to ask.

"Oh, I just wanted to have a little chat. It's been so long since I last looked in on you and I was getting worried."

"It's okay, really… I'm fine, you can go."

"But you sounded so lonely when I came by."

"Really, I like to play alone. And I'm not really alone. I have Bones."

She looked around him. "Well, he's not here now, is he? He deserted you. Left you all alone even though you asked him to stay. That doesn't sound like a very good friend at all."

"He's my best friend. He always has been."

"I don't think he's a very good best friend. Friends don't ever leave you when you need them most, do they?"

"He's my best friend. He's always there for me."

"Well, he's gone now. But I'm here." She smiled.

"I don't want you to be here."

"Oh, Youngblood…" she laughed, "you're killing me! We used to play all the time. I thought you would be happy when I dropped in."

"But I don't want to play with you now. I want you to go away."

"But I thought of such a fun game for you. You'll have a blast."

He whispered. "I don't like your games."

"Too bad, we're playing it anyway. First, I sit here like this…"

She sat beside him and wrapped her arms around him as she "soothed" him. But it just made the boy more nervous. He began to tremble, but tried not to let her see. She did, of course, notice it anyway and decided to go to step two.

"And then you start thinking."

He looked up with his big green eyes. "That's it? I just think?"

"That's right. All you have to do is think."

"That's not so bad. I think all the time." He brightened. "I like to think about pirates and sailing the high seas, and being a cowboy, or an astronaut, or a knight in shining armor." He became more and more excited, and his eyes were glowing again. "Yah, I think of what to play and then you play it with me!"

"Well that's not quite how this game works. I tell you what to think about and then you tell me what you remember."

He was quiet again, still, and confused. That didn't really sound like a game… at least, not one he wanted to play.

"Can't we just play cowboys and Indians?"

"No, this is much better."

"I don't…"

"Just be quiet and listen to Penelope."

His mouth closed, almost against his will, it was so sudden and unnatural.

"Very good. Now, think back to the first thing you can remember."

"Indians! That was the last thing I said."

"No, not the first thing you can remember, I mean the first thing you ever remembered."

"Why?"

"Because that's how you play the game."

"I… remember… Ember agreeing to play pirates with me? She used to do that a lot before the portal opened. Even more than you."

"Surely you remember something before that. Even your short attention span couldn't have kept everything out of your brain. Think further back."

"I remember when I first found this place. Bones and I were looking around and I saw the trees and thought they looked funny, so we came over, and we liked it, so we set up camp."

That was more like it. He was starting to go back almost far enough. Just a little more prodding and he would get it.

"Where were you before you found this place?"

"I don't know." He replied slowly, forehead scrunched in thought. "I was just wandering, I guess. I don't remember a time when I wasn't here."

"Sure you do, you just said you remember finding it, so you haven't been here forever. Where were you before this?"

"I was just, floating, in the ghost zone. Bones woke me up one morning and we decided to go exploring." He faltered as he started to doubt what he was saying. His aura began to pulsate a little and Spectra breathed in deeply. It was refreshing as she began to feed. She definitely didn't get as much from ghosts as she did from humans, which was why she loved getting out of the Zone as often as possible, but she realized that this kid gave her more than almost any other ghost she had met. Children were always the best. Her sessions with Youngblood were how she had known to go straight for the kids at Casper High.

"No, Youngblood. There was something before that, even. A time before the morning you woke up in the ghost zone. Try to remember that day."

He swallowed thickly, nervously. His eyes began to bat quickly and his lower lip began to stick out in a frown.

"I don't… there's nothing there…"

"Yes there is, go deeper. Think harder!"

"I can't, there's nothing there!" He was trying to keep from crying. "There's nothing-!" He stopped and his eyes suddenly glazed over.

There was a sudden flash of darkness, like a shooting star zooming across his mind. It happened in an instant and hurt his head, but it silenced his protests of nothing being there, because it left him with a definite idea of something… something that he had known.

A small girl in a pink floral play dress going down the slide with a squeal…

Spectra smiled. "It's there now, isn't it? You can see it? Before you found this place, before you woke up, before the blackness…"

He shook his head vigorously from side to side, but she wasn't buying any of it.

"You remember what it was like to be on the other side. You remember what it was like before you died."

Laughing as he was plowed over by an over-zealous Labrador puppy and covered with saliva. He rolled over to pick up the pirate hat that had been knocked from his head and when it was again securely on his head, put his hands out in front of him for protection.

"Eew, Bones, stop licking me!"

"No! No… no…" He died off, still shaking his head, tears leaking from his eyes and running down his rounded cheeks.

"Yes you do." She hugged him tighter as she fed off of the newest waves.

"I don't… I don't remember anything."

"Come on, tell Penelope what you remember."

"No, I don't want to!"

"It's part of the game."

"I don't want to play anymore. I don't like this game. It hurts. Let me go! Let me go!" He struggled, but she held him in a vice-like grip.

The far off song of an ice cream truck, coming closer as it followed its route…

Spectra fed off of him as the emotions rose and the pain consumed him. The poor kid was miserable and she was loving every second of it.

"I'm not going to let you go until you finish the game. You have to win. You have to tell me everything you can remember."

Everyone running to their mothers to beg for a dollar and sixty cents…

"I don't want to! I don't want to remember…" He squeezed his eyes shut.

He was beginning to see things he hadn't since he had arrived in the Zone. It hurt. He hadn't really had many emotions other than the ones conjured up in his games with Bones. It was an overload to his system to suddenly get ones from his past life's memories- as a human. They scared him because he didn't know what he was seeing.

With each dark flash and momentary glimpse at a face or a place, his mind began to burn. It hurt him and he didn't know why.

He just wanted it all to stop.

He wanted Spectra to go away and take her horrible game with her.

He wanted Bones to come back to him so he could play pirates again. Pirates were his favorite. They always had been. Even when…- ahh!

Running down the street, Bones at his heels, passing one mailbox and then another, wanting to be the first to make it to the ice cream man…

"Everyone wants to remember. You will feel better after you do. And I promise I'll go once you do."

He looked up at her hopefully but also surprised at the news.

"Promise." Her pinky crossed over where her heart had once been.

Youngblood looked back down at the ground and was quiet for a long time, except for the occasional sniffles.

She thought she was going to have to prompt him again when he finally spoke up, his voice croaking from the crying.

"I can see him."

"Who?"

"I don't know. But he's tall and he's really strong. He looks sad and scared, but I've never seen him like this before… I saw him a lot and… he loved me." He gulped. "I think he was my dad."

Spectra was impressed. This was so much further than Youngblood had ever gotten unlocking his memories. They had been different every time, but he had never been able to pinpoint something down long enough that he could describe it to her or recognize it himself.

And she hadn't felt so good in ages. This energy made up for the beating Danny had given her in the human world, and it replenished the store she was hoping to fill by going through the portal in the first place. And she hadn't actually brought another cognizant being down to this level of misery in what seemed like forever. She had forgotten what an accomplishment of this magnitude felt like.

She was drinking it in like there was no tomorrow when a huge wave of despair rolled off of the boy. She nearly did a double take when she recognized just how powerful it was. She would never have guessed that someone as small as Youngblood could produce so much; she had really hit the jackpot.

The boy curled up into a ball, tears streaming down his face, the pirate hat forgotten on the ground beside him.

"What?" She asked, eager to discover the source of this bounty. "What did you remember?"

"I forgot!"

That didn't make sense. "What? What did you forget?"

He was sobbing so hard that he couldn't answer her. Frustrated, she shook him violently. He didn't seem to pay any attention to her, but wept until his tears gave way to hiccups and deep, raspy breathes.

"I forgot why he was scared… I forgot what happened."

"What happened?"

"I forgot… to obey the rule… I forgot that I wasn't… supposed… to run out into the street… he had told me before… and I had promised… but Bones went first… he wanted to see the ice cream man… and I… I followed him… and then there was some screaming… and… he… looked scared and… shouted at me… but then there was… a big… noise… and I… I woke up here…"

Spectra could not contain her joy as she realized what had just heard. She had learned of the boy's death and formation as a ghost in the Zone.

It was the first story she had learned besides Bertrand's, and, of course, her own.

Ghosts kept their origins to themselves for a reason. If another ghost found out, they would have an infinite supply of potential blackmail material and the ability to force incredible amounts of pain on the ghost, induced from the memory of their life as a human. It was the one thing with which a ghost could feel just as deeply as a human could and because of it, the origin story was a secret to be guarded with your afterlife.

And here she was with Youngblood's dropped right into her hands.

It was almost too good to be true.

She would be able to force him to this state of misery almost as often as she liked now. She would never have to go hungry or grow prematurely old if she couldn't make it out the portal again!

She had been filled up. She was youthful, energetic, and unable to gain anything more by staying, so without a word, she got up, leaving the still crying Youngblood behind on the hill.

She began to fly toward her own lair in another section of the ghost zone, eager to share what she had learned with her shape shifting assistant. Oh, the fun they could have together!

Before she got too far away form the young ghost, however, she saw his own companion perched up in one of the dead trees. He pinned her with a harsh, red eye. He had not forgotten what she used to do to the pair of them.

She looked at him smugly for a minute or two, however, seemingly oblivious to his hostility. Then she simply said, "boo!" and watched amusedly as he fell off his perch with a squawk and flew at full speed back to his master.

Spectra shook her head and continued on her way.

She had plans for the duo. She would wait long enough for his boyish enthusiasm to wipe the memories of his death out of Youngblood's mind. By that time, she should be ready for another pick-me-up anyway.

Oh yes, she was very pleased with the day.

"See you again soon," she whispered over her shoulder before she set off.

.