TP CH.8: Evil's new face

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Phantom groaned when he opened his eyes for the second time that night. He now had no idea what time it was or how much time he had left, but he sat back up feeling for the collar around his neck and finding it still there.

"Blast it…" The teen said when his fingers brushed up against the smooth surface of the strap.

His ears perked when he heard distinct footsteps coming down the basement stairs and quickly he fell back onto the table, feigning sleep. He silently hoped his near rapid breathing wouldn't be a dead giveaway. Not that the witch really needed to breathe, it was habit mainly.

When the footsteps stopped, Phantom thought he was going to explode from the anxiety that weld up in his chest. He could feel his heart beat unsteadily as he tried to control his breathing.

"I don't see where Danny is -JEEZ MOTHER OF ALL HOLY. Is that PHANTOM?!" The boy, Tucker, the witch recalled from his memory, shouted.

A slap echoed through the room making Phantom nearly smile in agreement.

"Tucker, hush and thank you, Sam. Now, I know this may seem a bit odd, seeing as we have a witch restrained inside our house, but, I promise it's all alright."

Phantom dared to open one of his eyes halfway to watch the exchange between the humans, his child-like curiosity getting the better over past his better judgement. He saw Maddie, Jack, Sam, and Tucker all standing around him, thankfully not paying attention to him.

"Mads, we can't trust Phantom not to hurt them. Heck, we can't trust him not to hurt us! I mean, just think about what he did to you mere HOURS ago!" The older man held his arms out towards the other and pleaded with his eyes for her to agree.

The two teenagers both looked startled from the news and they turned with an agape mouth to peer up at the middle aged woman.

"What did Phantom do to you?" The goth girl cried, glancing between the hunter and the witch strapped to the table. Thankfully, she didn't catch Phantom shooting his eyes closed.

Maddie looked conflicted, though Phantom wouldn't dare to open his eyes to see that. On one hand, should she tell them about what the witch once was, or should she try to explain his situation a different way.

One look down at the restrained teen was enough answer for the huntress.

"Phantom was a human." She said softly, still looking down at him. Had she been paying attention, she might have seen how all the color drained from his face at her statement. "He was a human...that was cursed to be a witch."

Jack shook his head in denial. "Impossible.. Mads, you-"

"No, Jack! He was just a boy! Not even FIVE before Vlad- YOUR COLLEGE BUDDY VLAD- dragged him down to hell and threw him into the flames. The FLAMES, Jack!" She grabbed at her brown hair, disgusted by the look everyone else was giving her. "If only you could have seen what I seen and felt what he'd felt. He was screaming for us, Jack! He felt like we'd abandoned him!" She reached up and blindly grabbed at her husband's shoulders.

"He's not our son, Maddie! Now stop this!" Jack boomed, patience finally weaning. "Phantom tricked you, showed you false memories! There's no way that he was a human once. Besides, how would he have known us when he was alive anyway?"

Tucker and Sam looked at each other, then at the other two hunters. "Uh .. Are we intruding on anything important? We can leave.." Sam ended up saying, glancing nervously at the door.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary."

All eyes turned, wide eyed looking at the raised form of Phantom staring back at them with his darkened eyes.

He sat up from being on the table, the bindings creaking from his strength until he eventually broke through, glaring at the other people in the room when his chest ached.

"Phantom! You-"

"No, no, no…" Phantom chided the male hunter before he could start, even going as far as to waddle a finger at him. "I have nothing to say to you right now, Jackson."

Jack was furious by the outright disrespect the teen had shown him and nearly popped a blood vessel his face was so red. "Boy, now you listen here-"

Phantom waved his hand in a shushing motion and Jack's lips screwed forcibly shut. He then took the time to break his legs from the bindings they were in and shift so he was actually facing them now.

"I have bigger problems than your pride issues, Jackson." He looked up at the huntress and a look of regret passed over his face, if only for a brief moment. "What did you see, Madeline?"

Sam seemed more curious than frightened at Phantom's bounds breaking rather than Tucker, who was shaking beside her. "What is he talking about, Mrs. Fenton?"

Maddie looked between everyone in the room, and with a sigh, she quickly retold all that was shown her through Phantom's magic. Though, you'd think that being the one that cast the magic he would know, but that wasn't the case. That or, he simply wasn't aware what he had done by showing her.

There was many times, she noted, that Phantom had either winced or looked down at his hands sitting at his lap. It seemed knowing what exactly he had shown her was enough to silence the snarky young witch.

Through the telling of Phantom's backstory, Jack seemed sceptical, shaking his head at certain moments while looking uninterested at others, but Maddie knew that wasn't the case.

"...and then...the last thing I saw was Plasmius crushing his throat with an evil grin. " The huntress thought best after the events told, to not mention the last words that were spoken by the older witch.

Sam looked over at the witch in the room, who held his head in his hands, she gave a small glare and stomped over to him. Her combat boots thudded against the lab floor, echoing throughout the room. With a scowl she slapped Phantom across the back of his head as she does Tucker.

"Listen here! You may be bound to him, but that doesn't mean you can just sit here and mope while he kills our whole town! So, get up and DO something!" Sam pointed her finger at him accusatively, a glare adorning her pretty face-Wait, what?

Phantom looked up at her with an unamused expression. He lifted a brow at the goth's seemingly determined aura and shrugged, something he'd seen Tucker do a lot in his short time being here.

But, that only made Sam's determination and anger more noticeable on her features. She poked his chest sharply with her finger and got closer to his face, ignoring the hand attempting to pull her back and also ignored the glare Phantom finally sent her way in irritation.

"If you have EVER been a good person underneath all that self-loathing crap you call your life, then help us! Help us get our town back!" She growled, her fingers knitting themselves into his cloak.

That made Phantom's glare lessen a bit, but, it was quickly replaced with a small smirk when he placed a hand on her shoulder and slowly pushed the goth away, though her hand was still knotted in his cloak.

"Unfortunately for you, Samantha-"

"SAM." She quickly corrected, through gritted teeth.

"Sam," The teen replied with a roll of his eyes, " I'm not the person I once was...by far. In fact I'm near the opposite." He leaned back against the lab wall, still getting himself comfortable on top of the steel table. "I've done many terrible things in my second life. Not to mention a few accidental ones in this one" He unwound her fingers from his cloak and gave a cruel smile.

"So get off of me, yes?"

A shiver ran down everyone's spine from the low pitch of the witch's voice.

Phantom took that opportunity to fully push Sam away from him and growl.

"-And don't tell me what I should and shouldn't do. If I wanted your town to be damned in hell for the rest of eternity then that's where it would've been the night I was hanged. But, that didn't happen...did it?"

The goth scowled at his tone before letting out a begrudged "No."

"Exactly. So, why.. in all sense would I send your town's people into the underworld? Hmm? Certainly not for any gain on my part." Phantom tapped his chin and suddenly grinned. "But, I can think of someone who would have EVERYTHING to gain. "

Suddenly, the oldest hunter slammed his fist on a nearby lab table and growled. "The Red Devil."

Phantom grinned impossibly wider and nodded at the older. "Exactly. It's not me you should be worried about."

Jack glared and stalked over to the witch, his large form towering over the lanky 'teen's own. He held his massive fist up to Phantom's head and shook it menacingly. "Who's to say we don't? You're a witch, an evil creature of hell. What makes you think we'd EVER trust you?"

Phantom scowled and his eyes flashed and electrifying green. "Get. The HELL. Away from me." With that Jack was pushed back against the wall with an unseen force as the witch got up off of the lab table. "You… You all NEED me. I'm the only one who will even stand a chance against Plasmius. Without me, you're whole town is going to be used as finger food to the demons of hell. Their souls… never reaching salvation because of YOUR incompetence. Now… DO YOU WANT to be responsible for the death of YOUR ENTIRE TOWN, or do you want to be the ones who rescue them?" Phantom's cape flowed behind him, the green gemstone holding it at his shoulder sliding down to reveal his bruises.

There were varying reactions from the sight of them, the only one not really making one was Jack, who was panting on his hands and knees.

"Why...Why help us?" The male hunter rasped, rubbing his aching chest. "A demon like you… helping mortals… especially after what you did to people earlier?" Jack let out a noise similar to a laugh and shook his head, ignoring the comforting hand of Maddie, rubbing his back. "I don't believe it for a second."

Phantom scrunched up his nose and turned to him. "How on Earth do you even know about that, Jackson? You were unconscious. "

Jack grumbled, motioning to Maddie over to his left. "She could see the whole fiasco through the gate. So how are we to believe a word you say when you've never shown us you have ANY of that supposed humanity left in you?"

"The Spell gem in my book is cracked." The witch replied as if his answer solved everything.

The male hunter threw up his hands. "What does your book have anything to do with you killing those men?"

The witch rolled his eyes, getting as annoyed by the conversation as Jackson was. "It was leaking more power into the spell in the air. I had only intended to either knock them out or scare them enough for them to leave me alone… It wasn't intended to have the centipedes...in them."

"Oh sure! And what of the belltower? You nearly crushed someone AND nearly cut someone's arm off!"

Phantom shrugged. "I don't like loud noises, so i had intended to break the bell, but again my magic is a bit funky at the moment."

"-And the man's arm?" Sam had spoken to his right.

"Just an accident. He was dumb for thinking he could escape so easily." The white haired man looked off at the man gadgets on the many other steel counters with mild interest.

"Ohhhh an ACCIDENT?" Jack mock questioned, getting closer to the confusing witch.

"YES. And ACCIDENT. As I said he should've known better than to try and escape me like that!" Phantom threw out his arms, glaring up at the hunter.

Said hunter growled and pulled at his hair in frustration. "Do you even HEAR yourself? You want us to trust you but then you go on and say a person trying to escape a mass murdering psychopath is stupid! Do you know how utterly inhuman you sound?!"

A few gasps came from the other three as they looked between the arguing pair.

Phantom steeled his expression, feeling claws nip into his hands from his clenched fists. Through gritted teeth he spoke, practically seething. "I'm NOT human." He stepped closer to Jackson, watching the man take a step back from him in response. "-And If I'm honest, your kind's definition of the word is finicky. You all say to be a human is to have heart and reach for hope, but what do you do? You burn innocent people at stake under even a glimmer of suspicion they may be a witch. "

"-And what does YOUR kind do then, Phantom? Manage charity events?" Jack started with about as much heat as Arizona in the middle of August.

The witch once again scrunched up his face in confusion at the suggestion before he glowered, crossing his arms and glaring up at the older man. "We prey on human souls. "

Maddie stepped forward, standing by her husband, eyeing the collar still around Phantom's neck that had been glowing green the entire conversation. It meant Phantom had meant every word he'd said. "-And how do you feel about that, Danny?" She said softly, watching the boy's eyes widen at the use of his name.

The goth girl, also curious about this, got closer to the three despite her friend's obvious suggestion for her to stay back a ways with him. "Yeah, what do you think about what you do?"

The witch stepped away from Jack who just stared down at him with a neutral expression and sat himself back up onto the countertop. " It's what our kind does. We may not deem it as bad, most of us anyway, but to you humans, we are evil. No, we are simply higher up on the food chain. Are humans evil for preying upon their cattle because it is a lesser evolved species? Of course not, because that is the human way."

Phantom sighed, moving his white hair out of his eyes. "-Just as our way is to reap souls to maintain our bodies. Without them...we eventually shrivel up and die as i nearly did those 400 years ago." He played with his hands, noting the dirt still caked underneath his nails.

Maddie placed a hand on her husband's shoulder, rubbing softly as she spoke. "You are referring to the night you drained the town's young, right? Are you saying you were nearly dead? Why wait that long. ..?"

"Maddelin, when you go from being a human boy, to being an all knowing entity, from eating cabbage and the occasional rabbit, to being forced to eat the souls of people you once knew, you tend to hesitate. " He shook his head, sighing and dropping his hands from his lap to grip the counter harshly. "Despite the warnings from Plasmius about doing so, I starved myself. I simply couldn't bring myself to eat a soul and take away something that was taken wrongfully from me. So years went by, while i should've been at what mortal years went age 20, I appeared like an old man. My skin wrinkled like raisins and my form was weak, but Plasmius had said nothing to me after the third year. The hunger became worse and worse until I started losing myself. "

He peeked up at the female hunter, as if he was only speaking to her in the basement room and tilting his head. "I was angry, and absurdly hungry. I watched my family grieve for my death, not knowing I was staying in the very woods by them, watching. And I had watched as...my parents had another child, a younger sister named Jazmine. " The witch gave a small smile, appearing foreign on the young face. "She was lovely, long red curls, beautiful turquoise eyes. She was the sweetest girl in the village and my parent's loved her so, as did I. " His eyes grew a far away look to them, making Maddie cling a bit to her husband, remembering the last time that had happened.

The male hunter gruffed, not looking at the younger male. "If you loved her so much why did you kill her? Why not feed from someone else…"

The witch was quiet for a moment, making the other's wonder if they needed to repeat the question, the green light of the collar glowed, reminding them that all that Phantom had said up to that point had been entirely true.

The electric green eyes twitched. "I was angry. A part of me loved her unconditionally as her older brother, but another… another part of me was furious. Furious that my parents had moved on and seemingly forgotten about me, and I unrightfully began to take out that childish hatred out on my sister. I would plague their home with rodents and pests, destroy their crops, and one day I.."

Phantom went silent.

"-One day I grew so spiteful I had cursed my own mother. " His eyes flicked up to Maddie's for a split second before looking away once more. "I cursed her and her future reincarnations with infertility."

The husband and wife both looked at the witch now, eyes wide and a bit horrified. Although Jack was having a hard time trying to piece together everything he had learned that night, he was still against having anything to do with the witch as his "father." But hearing the last part caused those thoughts to pause as new ones rushed their way in.

Phantom made them infertile?

"The curse was made to punish them, so long as i, their first child, suffered, so will they, with no more children to help fill that gap." Phantom looked to the both of them.

Sam stood a few feet away from the boy, looking from him to the shocked hunters. "So...was this what finally made you snap?"

With a nod, the light haired boy picked at the collar around his neck, wincing at the throb from his eternal bruises. "Yes, essentially. I lost myself to the anger and was consumed and that night, I had lured all the children into the woods with a simple enchantment spell. But, I was so hungry to think, and afterwards I was too drunk on power to care for my actions. I had went insane and it took a 400 year sleep for that madness to leave me and even then, when i had first awoken I could feel the looming threat like a vice around my neck. "

"It wasn't until the earlier at the belltower, with those men and the appearance of Plasmius that I truly realised what I was doing. "

Maddie watched the younger close up and rubbed her husband's shoulders, resisting the urge to comfort the boy. She tried to keep her thoughts away from that scene that had happened earlier.

Though the comfort of his wife calmed him some, Jack couldn't help but notice that her attention wasn't on him rather on the bruises circling Phantom's neck. Those definitely were a constant reminder of exactly who they were dealing with, regardless of what Phantom had been saying.

"Why help us..if we're the ones who killed you…?"

Everyone turned and looked surprised at Tucker, who finally spoke after a long silence, saying what everyone had most likely been thinking.

Phantom sighed, looking down submissively at his feet. "It's hard to say. As you know i was human once, though young when I was turned, I remember due to my all knowing nature. I remember enjoying the simple things, the winds blowing at my hair, the look and feel of snow falling, and beauty of the stars at night, and yet now as I am I can enjoy none of it. The only joy I feel, comes from the pain of others and it sickens me."

With this, the white haired teen looked back up at the other people in the room, his usual attentive eyes soft and sad.

Phantom grit his teeth and his eyes shut tightly. "I don't want to die a monster. NOT again. " The witch shook his head and opened them again, calming down considerably. "Please. I ask you, I BEG of you… Help me get the townspeople back. He'll kill them all if we don't. "

Phantom then turned and took a long silent stare at the male hunter when he finally sat back up. "...and when it's all over…"

The witch sighed, closing his eyes again for a second.

"When it's all over you can kill me. If...If I'm not already dead, of course. I'll die at dawn unless I consume a soul."

Jack stared at the teen for a bit, taking in his expression, and searching for any hostility or dishonesty. When finding none, he let out a sigh of his own and stood up sticking out one of his large hands to the teen.

The witch looked at the hand with furrowed brows before going to shake it. He was stopped before he could and Jack held his hand in his own and squeezed it. Phantom looked up at the other with a confused glared, wondering what the point of this was.

When he met the hunter's gaze, he couldn't look away. The man pulled Phantom closer to him by his hand and glared. "Don't shake...unless you mean it."

The witch blinked at him, startled by his statement then gave the most serious expression he could match, hoping to go up against Jack's own and shook his hand.

Jack finally gave a characteristic grin and shook his hand himself, laughing when he saw Phantom jump from the force and brace himself on Jack's forearm.

Everyone in the room let out a relieved sigh from the tense cloud lifting.

Phantom gave the smallest smile before using his strength to pull away.

Jack's laughter boomed throughout the room. "To think such a small teen has been causing all these problems. You need more meat on your bones, boy."

Said boy shook his head and frowned. "You wouldn't like what I would need to do to get it."

Jack merely slapped a hand on the boy's back and patted it."Well..What do we do? You're our best shot at getting everyone back after all."

Sam finally stepped back in.."Yeah...how do we go and save the town?"

Tucker fiddled with his hands and adjusted his glasses. "Yeah, isn't hell...like only accessible if we die?" The goth socked him in the back of the head for the statement. "Ow! Jeez, Sam."

The goth threw her hands out and made a face that clearly said, "Why would you ask such a stupid question."

Maddie gave a fond smile before looking over at Phantom- Danny and her husband standing shoulder to shoulder. "Danny...How do we stop Vlad..?"

Jack furrowed his brows and pouted. "Vladdy? What do you mean, Mads?"

Phantom grunted and pulled away from the hunter and looked at him, placing a hand on the man's broad shoulder."Vlad Masters is Plasmius...Er… The Red Devil."

The man looked horrified knowing his friend since college was actually a witch that had been terrorizing their town for centuries. He shook his head. "No. NO NO NO. Vlad can't be the Red Devil! He's been aging!"

Phantom almost looked sad seeing how upset the man was before removing his hand and clear in his throat to gain his attention again. "Our bodies are only an illusion. We can change it how we like to blend with the world around us. It's what Vlad has been doing since day one."

Maddie walked over and hugged her husband's side. "Jack...I'm sorry."

With that, the male hunter sniffed and nodded his head, calming instantly, though whether for good they didn't know. But, he looked back over at Phantom with a more determined expression than before.

"So, how do we get to them? I've got a few things I need to speak to VLADDY about."

The witch felt a smirk stretch across his face. His green eyes twinkled when he looked from person to person. "First...we need a plan."

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Sorry it took forever. Work, now college.

Two more chapters left then an epilogue

Til next time! -ShadTastic