A young boy ran through the base, opening every entry he came across - looking, to the world, like a man on a mission. This boy was no older than eleven years old, and he wore a backwards red beret on his head and a yellow turtleneck with glasses over his teal eyes. In his hand he was holding a small, blocky device that had a screen surrounded by the black boy and there were a few buttons littering the device. He held it as if it was the most valuable thing he had ever seen, and he plowed through the makeshift shelter with little thought to the various people he ran into until he found what he was looking for. Throwing aside the old multi-colored curtain that was a replacement for a proper door, he looked at the two startled faces with urgency in his gaze and seriousness in the lines of his body. One of the occupants was a girl the same age as the boy with black shoulder length hair and violet colored eyes that spelled annoyance at the abrupt entrance of her friend. She wore a fitted black t-shirt and the same grey cargo pants the boy was wearing, but instead of the red sneakers the boy wore, she donned steel-toed laced combat boots that rose halfway up her calf. The other occupant in the room was a man with green skin and white hair that's shaved on the sides of his head but long on the top and tied back into a loose ponytail, his entire form had a gentle white glow. His eyes were covered with black lenses that sat without support of a frame and he wore a black trenchcoat that was buttoned but partially covered by a grey cloak and black cargo pants with steel-toed combat boots. The ghost and the girl were surrounded with various electronics, some broken beyond repair and others half put together. They both startled when the boy barged in without warning, which made the girl glare harshly at being startled and the ghost sigh at their antics. The boy tried to speak for a second but failed as he also tried to regain his breath, finally giving up and holding up a finger to indicate he needed a second before folding nearly in half with his hands on his knees.
"Tucker, I know you updated Sherri, but now isn't the time to gush about your precious PDA." The girl said, exasperated. She rolled her eyes and turned back to the screen they were examining. The boy, Tucker, seemingly having calmed down enough to function, huffed in indignation at his friend's implication that he had rushed all the way here only to talk about his precious PDA.
"You and I both know that I would not have run here," he exaggerated his shiver of disgust at the idea of exercising willingly, causing the girl to roll her eyes again, "just to tell you something I could have told you later. No, I came with important news, Sam. Like it's actually really important," he responded seriously. Hearing his tone of voice, Sam and Technus turned to face the boy and Tucker took this as his cue to continue.
"I was updating Sherri's tracking systems, and you know that I put an ATL-"
"ATL?" Sam interrupted, her voice questioning. Tucker nodded his head and without a beat, he explained the terminology to his friend.
"It stands for 'Attempt to Locate,' and can also be called APB, 'All-Points Bulletin,' or a BOLO, 'Be on the Lookout.'" He said before quickly continuing as if the interruption didn't happen, "anyway, I had put an ATL in Sherri's systems when we started the search," he said giving a knowing look to the other two but not bothering to explain what search they were talking about, "Basically, it tracks the unique ecto-signature of a Halfa, the whole code was heavily encrypted just in case someone caught wind of what we were doing then at least they wouldn't be able to use the same software because with any attempt to hack it, the code would scramble and ultimately be destroyed. It was a precaution, I never expected anything to actually come of it because it seemed a little too...easy, I guess. But, I stuck with it because it didn't really do any harm and when I was updating the tracker, it pinged." The other two straightened in surprise.
"How do you know it's not Plasmius?" Technus asked. Sad realization dawned on both the kid's faces and they glanced at each other before turning to the ghost.
"We forgot to tell you. When you were captured, Plasmius led the rescue mission with a small, covert tactical extraction team. Only one of the extraction team had come back, and it...wasn't Vlad." There was a moment of shocked silence that followed the story where Technus simply processed the fact that several ghosts were obliterated trying to save him.
"...I see." Technus responded evenly, his voice echoing a grief and the clear message that he did not wish to be confronted right now about it. "Well, where is the boy, then? We need him here and safe until he can fight Pariah and take his rightful place as the royal heir of the Infinite Realms." Tucker glanced down at the device in his hand and hesitated.
"He's on Earth...a place called Happy Harbor in the States, but maybe we should observe for a while, you know, understand the situation before charging head-first." He suggested, his tone was unsure as if he thought he knew something else but wasn't confident about the information and didn't want to share the theory. Technus pondered this trying to decide whether he should press for this information or trust that the boy would have told him if it was pertinent or detrimental to the mission. Deciding that he could always push later if the need arose, the ghost nodded and turned to walk out of the room.
"I'll talk to Skulker and see who we can send for a stakeout mission," he declared and stalked out of the room in search of the hunter, leaving Sam and Tucker alone in a temporary silence filled with a mix of elation and apprehension.
"Do you really think it's him?" Sam asked, breaking the fragile but short silence. Tucker glanced down at the device again as if he was checking to see he really read the data correctly before looking back at his friend who sat rigidly on the cot still covered in parts and pieces. His face hardened slightly in a resolve he didn't really feel but wanted to project in order to reassure the girl.
"I do." He answered confidently, pushing his own doubts and fears to the back of his mind.
"Do you think he'll...that he'll remember us?" Some of the surface-level confidence drained from the boy and he hesitated once more, this time unsure if he could be as certain in his answer because he held that same fear. The two had met Danny about two years prior and as street kids who had very little to call their own, they got attached and held on as hard as they could. The two kids looked at each other, getting lost in the memory of meeting one of their best friends.
Sam and Tucker had been fighting in the hidden alley that was a neutral ground in between the dense forest and the abandoned building they temporarily claimed as their home until they had to move on in order to avoid CPS or the cops catching wind of them. A harsh rustling of leaves and nearly inaudible but clearly urgent breathing cut into their arguing. When the two nine-year olds looked over to the source of the sound, trying to discern if a threat was approaching them and were met with an unexpected sight.
A boy, about the same age as them, stumbled through the treeline of the forest and onto the small strip of dead grass that separated forest from civilization. He was looking where he was coming from more than he was paying attention to where he was going, seemingly unconcerned with the potential of running into something, clearly worried more about the certainty of what was chasing him than what could possibly be in front of him. The state of the boy was more frightening to the other two kids than the clearly dire situation he was in. He was wearing a white t-shirt and grey sweatpants with no shoes and was covered in dirt, blood, and some type of green substance that neither Sam nor Tucker could guess at. He was also thin as a rail and seemed frail, even fragile or delicate. His spiky hair, under the various liquids, was grey or white but it was ultimately hard to tell with how caked in dirt and grim it was, and the strands had sticks and leaves embedded in the mess like he had run into more than one bush or tree.
Tucker let out a harsh exhale of breath in horror and the boy's head snapped to them so fast that it gave Sam whiplash just by watching it. The boy froze, now only a few yards in front of the two kids watching his every move, giving them a good opportunity to study his face.
Even though he was obviously malnourished, his face was slightly rounded, giving him a soft and innocent look, but his dull green eyes were lit with unadulterated fear and horror. He had a bleeding cut on his left cheekbone and above his right eye and the left side of his face was dark purple with an odd hue of dark green that was almost unnoticeable, however neither the bruise or the reddened area around the laceration weren't swelling. His face wasn't the only injuries he sported on the skin that was visible, however, as his neck was red and there was a predominant hand-shaped bruise and the area surrounding his wrists were burned and raw.
The sound of distant barks and snapping twigs brought them back to the present and the boy looked back to the direction he came and took a stumbling step away, coincidently bringing him closer to the duo. He let out a heartbreaking whimper of fear and the other two immediately rushed to the boy's side. It was obvious that he was running from whatever caused that sound, and given the boy's current state, he wasn't much of a threat to them like this. Tucker grabbed his left elbow, mindful of the bruises, burns, and bleeding cuts maring his form and Sam grabbed Tucker's other hand and dragged them into the building and activated the lock that Tucker had made. They waited until the barking and rustling faded before letting out a breath of relief. The two turned to the injured boy to see he was glowing slightly in the dark warehouse and he was huddled against the wall, watching them in an obvious fear that was still less than what he had felt for whatever was chasing him a few moments ago.
Sam slowly approached the boy and attempted to calm him down and was only somewhat successful as the boy tried to slide against the wall to keep his distance, whimpers and small sounds of fear that Sam had only ever heard from cornered and abused animals escaped the kid's throat every time the girl made any sort of sudden movement. When he finally let the girl into his space, Tucker handed her the medical kit they had made over the years before backing up to a considerable distance, clearly trying to ease the boy's fears by not crowding him, and Sam thanked him before she started cleaning the wounds as best she could.
"My name's Sam, that's Tucker. What's your name?" She asked quietly and patiently waited for his response as the boy obviously struggled with the words over his fear and the clear language barrier that Sam could infer from the heavy accent the boy spoke with.
"D-Dan-ny." He managed to stutter quietly.
They had known Danny for about two months and became very fast friends. It was out of character for them both to trust new people as quickly as they had with Danny, but once they established that they - against all odds - loved Danny like he had been with them for years, like he was family, they didn't want to allow any more hurt to befall the strange boy. They let him lean on them as he struggled with hismemories of the previous five years of torture he endured at the hands of his captors. The two street kids quickly turned into his support system as he adapted to being theirs and over the short time they were together the duo had made a lot of progress in helping him, they had gotten him to smile more frequently and encouraged him to talk more despite his initial insecurity about his broken English - they tried to teach him everything they knew but that could only help so much - and he was ecstatic when they told him he could talk in his native language if he chose (Tucker would sometimes try to translate it with his PDA, but translation was a fickle thing and didn't work all the time, not to mention they couldn't really place what language it was, only managing to narrow it down to a few regions and guessing at what translation made the most sense, Danny never really seemed to mind that they didn't know what he was saying though).
They were happy, all things considered.
Well, they were up until he was taken a mere few months after meeting him. They didn't know how, but one day when they got back from "borrowing" food and money, he was just gone and there was blood smeared over the old furniture that had been abandoned with the building. They had looked everywhere for him, upset and heartbroken but ultimately unsurprised at the abduction because there were only so many safety precautions and security they could enforce as nine-year-old homeless street rats, and that's when they stumbled upon the problem in the Ghost Zone. Both the ghosts and the two kids had a common objective, to find and protect Danny, so they decided to team up and the two became part of a rebellion. Soon enough, the duo saw the importance of the ghosts' cause and genuinely wanted to help, but that didn't change that they had one priority: getting Danny back and safe.
And the first step was to carefully extract Danny from the situation he was in so they could lock him in a room away from the horrors of the world and protect them from anything that can hurt him.