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furiarossa · 1 month

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"Danny looked down, thinking. Only then did he notice an inscription on the pedestal holding the three statues. “Madeline Walker | Vlad Masters | Jack Fenton The ghost friends honor them, April the 3rd, 1983: For the heroic saving of our lives" «They… they never told me anything» Danny looked at the statue, then at Skulker, then back at the statue «Why?»."

Okay, this lineart is so good that inspired a scene in me (I wrote it, even though I practically never write in English) and TWO different color versions.

7th submission for the @green-with-envy-phandom-event! This is a collab: the lineart was created by the awesome @ecto-stone, while we did the color.

Alternative (golden) version + ficlet under the cut!

Danny approached the sculptural group, vaguely in disbelief. At first he didn't really understand what he was seeing... he just had the feeling that it was something familiar, that the shapes of those greenish bodies reminded him of something. There were three people, dressed like ghostbusters, with tools and protective goggles. There were also other details, rays and small figures.

Danny squinted. One of the three was too similar to his father... but younger, with more hair, with a cheeky smile. So the other two, they were... yes, he had only seen them like this one other time, in a photograph from their college days, but... they must have been his mother Maddie and Vlad Masters.

It was quite impressive, to see a statue of three people he knew so well as adults, but immortalized forever, frozen in time, as the version of them that had been real only years before.

«Why is there a statue of them in this place?» He asked Skulker «They are ghostbusters, why did you immortalize them here, in the Ghost Zone?».

Skulker looked up at the sculptural group, his gaze unreadable, machine-like. But his silence, which lasted a few moments too long, spoke for him.

«It's a celebration» He said «From the times of the ectoquake. We all risked dying... or losing all the information in our cores, due to altered magnetism» he touched his chest with his large gloved hand «We would have forgotten who we are, we would have become a bunch of babbling ectoplasms devouring each other to survive, unable to recognize ourselves. A fate worse than death».

Danny looked down, thinking. Only then did he notice an inscription on the pedestal holding the three statues.

“Madeline Walker | Vlad Masters | Jack Fenton

The ghost friends honor them, April the 3rd, 1983:

For the heroic saving of our lives"

«They… they never told me anything» Danny looked at the statue, then at Skulker, then back at the statue «Why?».

Skulker pulled his gun from the holster, a handkerchief from his back pocket, and began cleaning it. That gesture worried Danny, but the other ghost didn't seem to want to attack him.

«They never told you anything because they don't know anything» Skulker revealed, speaking in a low voice «They themselves asked for their memories to be erased»

«Why?» Danny shook his head «Vlad certainly wouldn't have thrown away the opportunity to be adored as someone's savior»

«You know nothing about Vlad» Skulker's voice was thick, sticky, full of menace. Danny realized that they had never talked about Vlad before: how had he and Skulker met? What did they think of each other?

«Vlad wouldn't let anyone, not even himself, see him as a hero» The ghost hunter continued, moving the cloth more rapidly on the butt of the gun, as if he was trying to remove a stain «That's not what he does. But on that distant day… he and your parents saved the lives of all of us. They saved the entire Ghost Zone ecosystem»

«My parents probably did all the work and he joined the group only to take the glory» Danny snorted

«You don't know anything» Skulker said slowly

«I know Vlad quite a bit»

«No. You are a fourteen years old boy who thinks he knows how things go, but he doesn't. I've known him for twenty years, and you for... how long? Less than a year? And most of the time you just argue like two children»

«The fact that he fights with a fourteen year old» Danny pointed to his chest «I think already says a lot about him»

«He's training you, brat. For my part, if I could I would have taken your head off a long time ago... but he saved you, remember?».

Danny blinked. Yes, the first time they had seen each other… he had been trapped in the cube, powerless, with only his head sticking out, like a trophy. And Skulker would have gladly used his new blade on him, if it hadn't been for Vlad, who had stopped him.

«He's only doing it because he wants to have me as his son» Danny muttered

«Doesn't sound like a bad reason to me» Skulker growled.

For a few moments, there was silence. Only the movement of the ectoplasm could be heard, like the riptide of the sea in a bay, there wasn’t even the sound of breathing.

«So...» Danny, who had no intention of arguing with Skulker, continued «What's this about the ectoquake?»

«It's something that... happens» explained the ghost hunter «Every now and then. It's not exactly cyclical, but almost. And anyway, you can predict it, but you can't stop it. An ectoquake is the most terrible circumstance the community can experience: it not only destroys the lairs, but also the physical forms of the ghosts and their memories. It is a magnetic storm of such magnitude that it destroys everything it touches, rearranges it and turns it into something different. Every time an ectoquake occurs, thousands of species disappear forever and those who survive become mindless cannibals. It takes years for species to re-evolve and for ghosts to regain a minimum of reasoning»

«Wow. It really sucks...»

«Indeed. Usually very few ghosts survive: those who have access to a portal and can escape into the material world, for example. You get out of here» Skulker pointed up, as if there was a ceiling (which wasn't there) «The ectoquake can't get you. But the problem is that ectoquakes can also be predicted by humans»

«And so?»

«And so the ghost slayers remain stationed outside any natural portal, trying to kill every ghost that is escaping. It's a sealed fate»

«The ghost slayers?» Danny wrinkled his nose «I've never heard of them...»

«You're used to seeing those ridiculous ghostbusters... the Guys in White, those bad copies of Mystery Incorporated, your parents... but there are real monster hunters out there, with real weapons capable of blowing your head off. They don't go hunting for flying kids, they want to collect large quantities of ectoplasm at once, and to do so they predict ectoquakes and capture and kill those who escape»

«Terrifying».

Even though he was in his ghost form at the moment, Danny still felt goosebumps. Perhaps his ectoplasmic body simply remembered the reactions of his flesh body, or perhaps the idea disgusted him enough to change the surface composition of his ghost.

«At that time I was… little. Small. In the physical sense of the term» Skulker seemed a little embarrassed at this revelation, but he didn't stop recounting «I didn't have the armor yet, I was a small and defenseless body, and I managed to get out early, without the ghost slayers noticing. The ectoquake was a month away. But I was captured by them» he pointed to the three statues «They were in college and still studying, they weren't dangerous. Maddie and Jack wanted to dissect me, study me and then kill me» Skulker's voice softened «Vlad begged them not to do it. He saved my life»

«I can't imagine it»

«Too bad for you, kid. Too bad that you can't imagine that your parents, exactly as they do today, try to destroy the ghosts, while Vlad, exactly as he does today, helps me»

«Touché»

«I told them about the ectoquake. And they did something incredible: they built a portal for the first time. Not that little thing that would later destroy Vlad's life: a real portal, bigger than all the others. Huge, inside an abandoned building. Six meters in diameter, so that ghosts of any size could fit through. No ghost slayer expected us to escape from there, because they didn't know that portal existed. And then they invented something else, the Fenton thermos, a device capable of capturing ghosts, with which I was able to collect and transport the slowest or weakest ghosts, or those who were too afraid, into the material world» Skulker frowned «When the ectoquake came, the damage to the Ghost Zone was incalculable, but… but we didn't have to start from scratch. There had been many casualties, but many of the plants and animals were safe, my friends and I were still sane, we were fine. We had spent all the necessary time inside the abandoned building. Some inside the thermos, others free… we were all alive. Thanks to them: Madeline, Jack, Vlad»

«I… I didn't know. Why didn't I know?»

«I’m telling you, they don't remember anything»

«Why?»

«They knew ghost slayers were dangerous, boy. They knew they might have let some information slip: how to build the portals, where the escape route they'd created for us was. They decided together that they would forget it. There is one of us who can make wishes come true...»

«Desiree»

«Yes, exactly, Desiree. To protect us all, they wanted to forget what happened»

«Couldn't you just wish the ghost slayers would stop hunting you? Or that ectoquakes didn't exist?»

«You have a skull as thick as a bison's» Skulker placed his index finger on Danny's forehead «Do you really think ghost slayers are stupid? They are protected by amulets, ghost powers do not work on them. As for ectoquakes, they cannot be avoided in any way, they are an integral part of the Ghost Zone!»

«Well, yeah, I didn't know» Danny's cheeks turned a light shade of green.

Skulker withdrew his hand and approached the sculptural group, placing his hands on the pedestal. «Their heroism, their intelligence, their sacrifice… we will never forget them. They have already forgotten them» He sighed «It's a real shame that Madeline and Jack betrayed him and abandoned him like this. He didn't deserve it. Together they could have conquered the world, obtained everthing, but instead...»

«They didn't betray and abandon him!» Danny exclaimed

«You weren't there, ghost boy. How would you know?» Skulker looked at him over his shoulder, a single green eye visible, luminescent like a light bulb «You should listen to the story as told by others too. And maybe even your stupid parents would be ready to admit what they did to him. You weren't there, but I was. And I don't wish for anyone to see what I saw».

Danny looked up at the statue, feeling a myriad of emotions boiling inside him. An invisible hand squeezed his stomach. He didn't know about this, about how they had become heroes of the Ghost Zone… what was there that he still didn't know about them?

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(I will definitely expand this thing later... for now, you got the idea XD).

Aaand here there is the golden version (of course there are gold statues of the saviors, somewhere!):