Fragile Glass ch-6

Chapter 6… Through the Looking Glass

     Robert ran out of the palace and onto the streets. He saw the Guys in White agents were swarming the area. He turned in visible and head for the alleys. Once he hid in the shadows he turned visible again. He ran through block after block trying to find a good hiding place. He came across a sewer hatch when a pair of agents saw him. "Hey you! Stop!" one of them yelled from his right. The agent on his left came running for him too.
     Robert looked down at the sewer hatch and could smell the water from the surface. It was revolting. 'Well no one said being a super hero was glamorous.' He thought. He went intangible and dived  through the hatch as the agents crashed into eachother. Robert laughed. "Suckers." Robert ran down the pipes as fast as he could then came to a fork in the road where he saw a slave working on another pipe. He turned invisible until he saw who it was. It was Will. "Padelford." He called. Will turned his head for only a moment and went back to work as if Robert wasn't there. "You gotta help me." Robert said.
     Will continued to bury his head in his work. "I don't see you." He mumbled. "You're not here. I'm just trying to seal this leak."
     "Listen man, I dunno my way around these sewers but you know them like the back of his hand." Robert said. "My Will does too."
     "Uh-uh." Will shook his head.
     "Just point me in the direction of the helipads." Robert said. Still not a decent response. "Listen I know you Will Padelford, somewhere in you there is a sliver a decency there's gotta be."
     "I am a decent guy." Will said stopping what he was doing. "I just…I just…" he stammered. "Look you don't understand. I can't help you. I-I just can't! They'll kill me!"
     Robert couldn't believe what he was hearing. The Will he knew wasn't a pussy like this one was. "You're already dead." He said. "I'm sorry you can't see that. The life inside every slave here…" he started as he turned left. "…in every halfa died along time ago."
     Will stopped what he was doing and looked up at where Robert going. "You're goin' the wrong way." Robert stopped in his tracks and turned around. "Just tell me one thing." Will started. "Is there room on your ship for me?"
     "You want us to take you with us?"
     Will shrugged. "I got no reason to stay here." He said.
     Robert thought about it. "The rest of the team might have a problem with that." Robert could see Will was disappointed. "Fuck it. Lead the way." Will's face brightened and he headed down the other pipe with Robert watching their backs.
      Once they reached another hatch they jumped up through it and ran down the street into an alley…where the Guys in White were waiting. "Freeze!" one said.
     Robert and Will stood back to back and Robert extended his claws. "I kill half, you kill half?" he asked.
     "Sorry." Will said. "I'm a pacifist."
     Robert cast his eyes to the heavens. "Fan-tastic." He retracted his claws.

     Back at McMisha's, the party was picking up and Mirror Michelle was talking with another guy at the party when the Guys in White dragged Will and Robert into the building. "Your Grace." He called. The music stops. "The new halfa just killed Baxter and Padelford here tried to help him escape."
     Mirror Misha looked at Michelle and stepped up to her furious. "This is what I get for listening to you." She said. "For letting him live." She left to face Robert and they were only a few inches from eachother's faces. Misha lifted her finger. "I know very little about you and where you come from," she started. "But I think that your kind has a lot to learn."
     Robert smiled. "We got a lot to learn?" he laughed. "What a laugh!"
     "Quiet!" Misha whispered. "On this side," she continued. "Halfa workers do not speak to their superiors as you do and they definatly don't murder them!" Misha walked slowly back to her seat at the table she was at. "He was the only one of his kind, did you know that? The man you killed? He is irreplaceable! No one ran that operation as efficiently as he did, no one kept order among the workers as he did." She sat down and almost looked like she was going to cry. She hung her head low to her chest then looked back up with a weak smile. "This is my reward." She scoffed. "For treated you halfas with the LEAST bit of respect. Very well."
      As Mirror Misha finished her little speech, Mirror Danny was at the bar with his gang and cocked his head to one side, indicating that he thought that her definition of respect wasn't the same as his. His eyes glowed intencely showing that his anger was fuming and consuming him but he hid it well. The glowing eyes was all anyone ever saw.
     Mirror Misha stood up from her chair. "I can learn from my mistakes." She said. "You wanna set an example, Tucker? Use him. Set an example! Let him die, slowly in public view in the town center! Let his plees for mercy echo through the streets for all halfas to hear!"
     Michelle saw that her counterparts anger was fuming and that her anger wasn't as easy to control as hers. "Misha!" she called.
     "SHUT UP!" she shouted. Mirror Misha walked up to Michelle. "Another word out of you and you'll join him." Misha turned to face Will with that same betrayed expression as before. "And you…" she started as she stepped closer. "…you tinker and putterer and fixer of broken things, you've been the perfect theta for years. What could've possibly gotton into you?"
     Will looked up somberly, all hope drained from his eyes. "Do you want an answer?" he asked.
     "Yes."
     Will looked at Robert, and Robert looked back. "This guy…" he started. "This guy is a fighter from where he comes from, and there's a Will there just like me. Only he's some high-up comic book writer with a girlfriend and these people are halfas. Can you believe that?"
     "Actually," Robert butted in. "My Will isn't a halfa but halfas are treated the same way humans are if not practically worshipped."
     "And it does get old." Michelle added.
     Mirror Misha faced Robert. "Are you finished?"
     "Lemme think." Robert raises his eyes. "Yeah I am."
     Misha faced Will once again. "As you were saying, William."
     Will shook his head. "Maybe it's a fairy-tail he made up but it got me thinking how… each of us might've turned out if history was just a little different. I asked him to take me with him because whatever it's like on his side it's gotta be better than this." He said. "There's got to be something better than this."
     Misha shook her head. "Not for you, William." She said. "Oh he'll take you with him, just not where you thought." She nodded at Tucker to allow him to execute the prisoners.
     Before Tucker could even pull out his gun, Mirror Danny saw enough. He grabbed his wriat crushing it with his super strength. "I don't think so." He said. Dan placed his hand on Tucker's abdomen and his hand started to glow and he fired an ecto-ray from the palm of his hand sending Tucker flying across the dance floor.
     "Have you lost your mind?!" Mirror Misha yelled.
     Dan walked up to her a stroked her cheek. "No I didn't lose it." He said. "I just…" he searched for the right word. "…changed it."
     "Ooh." Robert started. "Badass. I like this guy."
     "Well I hate his guts." Will commented.
     "Who in this universe doesn't?" Michelle said.
     Dan led his gang and all the halfas out of the building. He was about to blast the door but Michelle held him back. She had a naughty twinkly in her eye. "Here," she said going ghost. "allow me." He hand glowed purple but before she could Robert whistled for his board he jumped on it as it flew towards him and went ghost himself.
     "Can we move along now?" Dan asked.
     Michelle and Robert nodded at the same time as they all rose into the air. Robert pulled out his cards and they glowed yellow. Michelle's hands glowed purple while Dan's hands glowed green. Then at the same time they all fired at the building destroying it sending people flying in every direction.
     Mirror Misha spits out some dirt from her mouth and points at the three floating halfas. "Go after them!" she commanded and her Guys in White guards at activated their jet packs and combat suits and flew after the ghosts.
     "Look out!" Dan cried as they all split up in different directions with the two agents hot on their trails.
     Robert flew on his snowboard making complicated twists and turns but he couldn't shake the hunters off his back. They fired their missiles at him. Robert dodged one, and used his claws to slice another in half. He noticed he was coming up on a bridge connecting two buildings. He jumped up high over the bridge as his board flew under. He landed on the board facing his enemies then pulled out some more cards. "Here! Pick a card!" he threw the cards at the bridge as the agents attempted to fly under the bridge. The cards hit the bridge making it collapse to the road below trapping the Guys in White under it.
     Michelle flew above the city and was facing her pursuers the whole time firing blast after blast of her ecto-ray. The agents dodged each shot and fired their lasers at her. Michelle raised a shield blocking the shots. Then the Guys in White fired missles. As the missles closed in, Michelle formed a n ecto-lasso and…well…lassoed the two missiles and hopped on their top sides riding them like a bull. "Now this is a rodeo!" She steered the missiles towards the agents and jumped off. "Yee-haw!" The missiles hot the agents sending them to the pavement below.
     Mirror Danny flew in the streets while his pursuers were above him. They fired their lasers but Dan dodged every shot effortlessly. Then turned to face them and fired an ecto-ray slicing off a wing from one of their packs sending one agent crashing into another. "Yeah!" he gloated. His victory didn't last long because he got shot down plowing him through the pavement. He back flipped up to his feet and his back was met by Michelle's and Robert's back
     They all looked at eachother and winked. Then roared as they attacked the surrounding agents.
     Dan punched, blasted and froze his opponents.
     Michelle hog-tied, kicked, blasted her enemies.
     Robert sliced, dealed, and staffed his opponents.
     When the mahem was over, only the three ghosts remained standing.
     Danny faced Robert. "Do you guys get into fights on your side?" he asked.
     "Every day." Michelle said.
     Dan's gang ran up him and the other two halfas as they approached the downed specter speeder. "You might wanna concider following us back." Michelle said to Mirror danny.
     Mirror danny shook his head. "I got the feeling I'm gonna fit in well over there." He said. "We'll stay one step ahead of them, don't worry about us." He faced his gang. "Maybe we can stir up somethings over here."
     Robert faced Will. "You're still welcome to come with us, Will." He mentioned.
     "Nah." Will said. "I might have reason to stay if you have room in your gang." He said to dan.
     "I could always use a good tinkerer and putterer. You're with me Chewie."
     Robert stepped aboard the Speeder as Michelle shook Dan's hand. "Thanks and good luck." She said.
     Dan blew a kiss in Michelle's direction and Robert rolled his eyes. "Oh Christ."
     Dan and his gang left Michelle and Robert to fly the Speeder away and they flew towards the dome of the shield. He and his gang fired their strongest ecto-beams to open the shield and Robert and Michelle made it through. Robert checked the fuel gauge. "Looks like we still have the leak." He said.
     "Good." Michelle said. "that should send us back."
     Robert pointed at a ghost portal that just opened up dead ahead. "Look."
     "I see it." The rumble shocked the ship. "Guys in White on our six." Michelle said.
     "I know." They were hit again as Robert attempted to perform evasive maneuvers.
     The small ship evaded the S.A.Ms as it closed in on the portal. One missile exploded in proximity to the ship. "I think we took a hit!" Michelle panicked.
     "Shut up! We're not hit! We're not hit! Stop side-seat driving!"
     "There's the portal. Go faster.  Must go faster. Must go faster! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!"
     Robert pushed the ships throttle as hard as it'll go and they entered the ghost portal. The portal closed and the two puruesing missles exploded.

     Back in Prime Amity Park Danny walked down stairs from his bedroom to see Jazz talking to Sam and Tucker. "Anything?" he asked.
     "Car and Dani found evidence of a fuel leak." Jazz said.
     "But no wreckedge?" Danny asked.
     Sam shook her head. "No."
     Suddenly an alarm goes off and Tucker rushes to the ecto-exodus screen. "Hey a ghost portal's opening out of town." He said. "Holy crap it them!"
     Danny ran outside with everyone else. Once they arrived on the outskirts of Amity Park, the Specter Speeder came karining down out of it and crashes right in front of the teens.
     "Nice flying." Michelle says.
     "thanks." Robert said as he opened the hatch and jumped down to be met with Marisa's face.
     Michelle jumped down and hugged Danny as hard as she could. "Danny!" she called.
     Robert and Marisa just simply kissed. "That's to let you know I missed you." Marisa said before slapping Robert. "And that's for making me worried."
     "Yeah," Danny started once Michelle let go of him. "We had Carrie and Danielle looking for you guys from here to Pariah's Keep. Where have you been?!" he shouted waving his arms about.
     "Through the looking glass, Dan." Robert said slapping his shoulder. "But it's good to be back." He turned to Michelle after taking a deep breath of fresh air. "So what's next for you, Misha?" he asked.
     "A shower." She said. "Then a bed. You?"
     "I am going to find a waterfall, and I am going to sit under it, and I am going to fall asleep."
     "Mind if I join you?"
     "Not at all."
     As Robert and Michelle walked down the street into the setting sun, Sam looked at Danny curiously. "Is it just me," she started. "Or are those two getting along better than usual?"
     Marisa decided to make suggestion. "Maybe they switched places with their evil mirror images and are here to take over our universe."
     They all looked at Robert and Michelle an shook their heads. "Nah."

The End