Danny was introduced to the giant heap of wheels rather well. After gracefully floating over the final flung car (it was a shame, it was a really nice silver Jeep), he was clocked in the back of the head with a tire.
"Hey- OWWW!!!!" He was actually okay. He'd been hit with worse than tires before. Rubbing the back of his throbbing head with a gloved hand, he spun around to come face to face with a seven story metal creature, his bright green eyes widening in shock. Its eyes were glowing headlights, its mouth was formed from two bent cars that smacked together hungrily, and it was decorated with a multi-colored armor of metallic car shells. Two red pick-up trucks formed its claw-like left hand, and a convertible and a full-sized pickup truck formed the other formidable pincer. It would've been appropriate if its legs were made from tractor trailers, but none of those were usually parked in a park's parking lot. So it was just a bunch of crumpled cars stacked like a jenga tower.
The emergency idea generator in Danny's mind activated. Jenga! Maybe if he could remove the correct car from the stack, it would send the entire monstrosity falling down.
But before he could take action, with one angry swipe of a pincer Danny was knocked down flat. Too bad mentally figuring out solution had to take time in the real world. He wriggled in vain beneath the massive cars, struggling to lift it off him even an inch.
Wait. He phased through the ground, and resurfaced moments later, behind the car monster. Duh. Again the wonders of lack of practice never ceased to amaze him. Picking a place in the legs that looked weak, he fired up an ecto-ray, pulsating in his hand.
"Hey, Auberto!" Groans and squeaks emitted from the beast as it slowly turned itself around, with an expression of pure rage. Danny grinned impishly, enjoying the exhilaration from the thrill of battle, and yelling terrible quips. It had been so long since he'd felt this amazing cockiness and confidence that came with ghost-fighting.
"There's about to be a car accident!" He hurled the orb of ectoplasmic energy straight for the monster's legs, sending every fiber of energy into its release. The monster stumbled, as the orb exploded on contact. But when the smoke cleared, the beast was still completely intact. Danny guessed he must have chosen the wrong block. Wasting no time, he whirled around for another barrage, trying a different strategy. Summoning his ice core to the surface, ice beams shot from his fist and coated the metal. In another loop around the battle scene, he shot ecto beams at the encased legs. He kicked a leg for good measure, and it shattered on impact, sending the monster's hips into a crooked tilt.
In a particular burst of cockiness, he teasingly battered the monster's face with a few sharp ice shards, causing a few car alarms to go off. The monster's headlight eyes blazed with anger, and it honked the notes to La Cucaracha furiously, which Danny couldn't take seriously. He chuckled, and that brief distraction was all it took, and twelve well-aimed tires repeatedly beat the back of his head. ...And he was on the ground again.
"Owww..." Now his head was really starting to hurt, and dizziness overwhelmed him as he struggled yet again to his feet. He managed to float a few inches before something hard banged into his head again.
"YOWWWWW!!!!! OKAY, this has gone on long enough. No more playing around." He wheeled around, paranoid, searching for any more incoming tires. The monster was still recovering from its missing leg. Then he happened to glance on the ground. He sighed.
"Of course." He muttered, half-annoyed, half-relieved. Tucker never failed to perform outstandingly. There was the Fenton Thermos, glittering in the churned up gravel. He picked up the thermos, and tucked it into his bright green sweatshirt pocket, grinning with narrowed eyes.
"You're in a real traffic jam now." He received a rude, drawn out honk in response. He laughed. "Ha, we'll see about that!" He shot into the air like a rocket, hovering high above the monster, who slowly began reaching out an arm to snatch him. Luckily, though its round weapons moved fast, the monster didn't. The next round of tires approached him, and concentrating, he turned intangible, and dove down toward the monster's boxy head. Corkscrewing downward, he fired ice beams yet again. Putting two colossal claws to its head in distress, all the cars simultaneously honked, piercing Danny's eardrums, causing him to swerve away abruptly.
Then the monster lost its head. Literally. Casting it aside as if it were meaningless junk, the head went flying high into the air. Then Danny's breath caught in his throat. It was heading straight for the park.
----
Jackson ran among the panicked parents and young players alike, in a dilemma. Where was his dad? He needed to go find him in case he was trapped by the giant car creature. But he knew his dad would also want him to be safe. Then through the sea of screaming people running around the soccer field, Coach Drey ran up to him, clutching his baseball cap to prevent it from flying off. He forcibly grabbed Jackson's arm, and began to drag him in the opposite direction of the parking lot.
"C'mon kid! We need to get out of here!" Jackson resisted slightly, pulling back.
"But my dad-"
"Your dad isn't stupid. He's probably waitin' with everyone else where it's safe. He wouldn't stay near that thing." But Coach Drey didn't understand. Jackson somehow knew his dad was involved with the car creature; whether he'd angered it, or had caused its creation, he didn't know, but its rage had to have been provoked by someone or something, and his dad had been closest to it. As far as he knew, everyone else had been at the game.
Then he began to let Coach Drey drag him away, as more reasonable thoughts began to fill his mind. There had to be other people in the parking lot, not just his dad. And maybe his phone-call had just ended, and he was already on his way back when disaster struck. Everything's going to be alri-
"JACKSON! RUN!" Jackson had never heard Coach Drey sound so terrified, nor had his arm ever been tugged nearly out of its socket. Except for that time when his mom saw someone she knew from high school in the mall one time and she had dragged him away before they could be noticed by the particularly stunning Hispanic woman.
People around them screamed and began to run for cover. Hurtling through the air at an almost impossible speed, three crushed cars spun and headed straight for the park.
And for them. If it were even possible, Jackson began sprinting even faster than Coach Drey, his heart beating wildly. They weren't going to make it, he could tell. It was impossible to know where the cars would land. They couldn't escape in time-
"Gotcha!" Jackson fleetingly glanced behind him, and his jaw dropped open. A bright green force field had materialized between the scattered people and the car, halting the car in its trajectory.
"And you, and got you!" The other two cars were stopped by two similar barriers. Before Jackson could observe further, Coach Drey yelled right in his ear.
"Jackson! Are you insane?! Don't stop running!" Jackson was forced to turn away from the scene and dash away with his coach, to where many others were waiting, including most of his team-mates. It was a small grove of trees that bordered the park, but it was better than nothing, especially wide open spaces like a soccer field. If any other cars were thrown in their direction, the trees would probably slow them down. Coach Drey finally released Jackson, and he collapsed against a rough oak trunk, breathing heavily as the adrenaline wore off.
He turned toward the soccer field, where he could still see the glowing force fields holding the cars in place. But who had been shouting during that whole fiasco? The voice he hadn't recognized, but it pricked the back of his mind as being familiar, somehow.
Wait...Was the voice the one creating those force fields? It made sense in context of what the voice had said. He narrowed his eyes against the glare of the sunset, hand on his forehead, trying to see any action. A figure with white hair and a green sweatshirt, flew past, seeming to be searching around. Raising both of its hands, which glowed green, it lowered, them, and the force fields mirrored their movements until the cars rested in the grass of the soccer field.
Jackson's breath caught in his throat. Either that was some superhero, or... It was a ghost. He couldn't believe he was actually seeing a ghost. People always talked about ghosts, about the half-ghost Danny Phantom in Antarctica occasionally, but no one ever actually saw them. And now here was one, right here, right in front of everyone, and it saved them. At least he thought it did. It did stop cars from crushing them to death. And it was also fighting the car monster. A new thought came into Jackson's mind.
Was the car monster a ghost? He knew about poltergeists, ghosts with the ability to move things. Maybe this monster was a poltergeist with the ability to move vehicles specifically. Didn't ghosts also had obsessions with certain concepts? He was also starting to surprise himself with how much he knew about ghosts. Why had he paid attention in particular to facts about ghosts. Well, he'd figure it out later. He had to tell someone what he'd seen.
"Nathan!" Nathan was chilling in the grass nearby, and he looked up quickly when he heard his name. He didn't sit up, but just rolled so he was facing Jackson.
"What?"
"Look, over there." Nathan finally was forced to sit up, and he squinted in the direction where Jackson was pointing, confusion written across his features.
"What?"
"See that figure floating over there?" Nathan squinted again, placing a hand over his eyes as a shield from the sun. Then he shook his head, looking back at Jackson.
"I don't see anything." Jackson gaped at him.
"But you saw how the cars were stopped by those force field things, right?" Nathan nodded slowly, as if he could hardly believe it.
"Yeah. But I don't see them over there anymore," he replied, glancing back briefly where he'd been searching before. Jackson was perplexed. It had to be the sun in Nathan's eyes, right? That's why he couldn't see the ghost? But when he turned back to the field, the ghost was gone. It must have returned to fight the car creature. As he looked back to the sunset colored field and back to Nathan's concerned face, Jackson tried to relax he features.
"It's fine." He finally reassured Nathan, rubbing an arm in embarrassment. "I think the trauma from almost dying is getting to me." This got a laugh out of Nathan, who sighed loudly.
"Yeah I-" he stared at Jackson, then broke off, biting his lip. He turned away, and Jackson tried to reassure him with a hug, but he was startled to realize that Nathan was crying, shaking with sobs.
"Wha-what's wrong?" Jackson exclaimed, concerned for his friend. Nathan bitterly wiped a tear away, sniffing. His head drooped in shame, dark hair falling in front of his blue eyes. He hiccuped, struggling to staunch the flowing tears.
"I can't b-believe I-I-I'm crying," Nathan responded, sounding deeply ashamed. He looked up at Jackson with glistening eyes. "Why am I crying? I'm sorry." Crouching in a kneeling position, Nathan put his face into his hands. Jackson was at a loss as to where to start in trying to comfort him, other than to pat him awkwardly on the back. Then, in a vivid flashback, he remembered when he'd started crying in the car after it had nearly crashed in an accident on the highway.
He'd been so embarrassed, crying like a baby when his dad had kept his cool the entire time, and he'd been the one driving. Yet his dad told him: "There's no reason to be ashamed of crying right now, it is pretty scary." Because it was. Crying was the best way to come to terms with something painful or scary, as a way of release, and to bring those who care about you closer and reassure you. And Jackson knew this was what Nathan needed to hear most right now: to not be ashamed of his emotions.
"Hey." Nathan slowly looked up, with a face reddened and streaked with tears. Jackson tried his best to give a reassuring smile. "There's no shame in crying sometimes. It was scary." Nathan managed a shy grin in return, but he still looked guilt-ridden.
"Thanks." He paused, then regarded Jackson seriously for a moment. "Just... don't tell my dad I cried, okay? He'd really let me have it if he knew." Jackson nodded.
"I won't." He felt a little bad for a second that Mr. Reese was so tough on Nathan, while his dad was much more sympathetic in comparison, but at least Nathan had a friend in him. Opening his arms wide, he invited Nathan into a hug. "Come on, bring it in!" The two bros hugged it out, reforging their friendship in the process until is was as pristine as ever. They were oblivious to the other conflicts boiling over around them, as many boys relinquished control and broke down admitting to themselves that they'd been shaken by what had occurred. And it was good.
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:o Literally got this one in on my self-imposed deadline by the skin of my teeth... Also thanks for reading! Coming from an emotional person this was a fun write! (As in exploring my emotions which is simultaneously frightening)