AN: Yey, it's Raison D'Etre Chapter Four! I love all of these characters, they're so much fun. Especially Kyle, Erik and Kale. July is pretty fun too. Some of these characters are much more than meets the eye, fufufu~ I loved writing the dialog between Kyle and Erik. They're kind of assholes, even to each other. One wonders exactly how it is they managed to become friends. I wonder what Danny would think of his kids being close friends to the children of Paulina and Dash? Well, well, maybe we'll eventually find out~

Raison D'Etre

Chapter Four: The Seekers, Part Two

Kale Foley and his partner, July Fenton, watched on with horror as they saw the mass of Seekers that they hadn't destroyed, slowly bring themselves together to form a giant, massive Seeker, the same thing that was happening in front of the two Fentons, as well as Erik and Kyle.

"K-kale..." July stammered, lowering her Fenton Cannon, her electric blue eyes going wide with both shock and fear. "What's going on here?"

Kale glanced back at her briefly, then turned back towards the forming monster. His stunned face was quickly replaced by one of determination. "I don't know. But I'm not going to let it finish." He said, shifting his kunai-like weapon to one hand and pulled out an ectogun in his other. He quickly started firing off shots at the merging Seeker horde, knocking out little bits of it. It seemed to slow down the process a bit, but the size of his ectogun's blasts compared to the size of the Seeker horde was great indeed.

"July!" He called down. "Aim at the horde! Your cannon will work better than my ectogun!"

The redhead blinked, then nodded, her heart pounding heavily in her chest as she brought up the canon again. Her legs were shaking a bit, she was really rather afraid of this thing. She had never seen Seekers do this. For that matter, she had never seen so many Seekers out all at once, especially not doing what looked to be a divided attack. Something was wrong here, even she knew it. Biting on her lip and trying to force back her fear, she fired off a shot into the Seeker horde, once again slowing the process of their merging.

Up on his hoverboard, Kale nodded. "Keep that up, July! Don't stop for anything!" He yelled down at her as he continued to fire off shots into the horde as well. It seemed as if they couldn't attack while they were merging, which was lucky for them. Frankly, he didn't want to see what these creatures could do when merged.

The girl nodded, tightening her grip on the Fenton Cannon, biting down hard enough on her lip to draw blood as she tried to bottle up her fear. She couldn't let Kale down now here, not when he needed her... Her thoughts began to drift off, thinking of a past event, but she managed to snap back to reality before she made an error that might cost them whatever advantage she hoped they held.

There was no one that July loved more in the world than Kale. She just knew she couldn't let him down, even if she was scared. Kale would never give up no matter what the situation, so she shouldn't even think about it either.

She kept up the chain of constant fire, pulling the trigger on the Fenton Cannon until her fingers became numb. Kale had backed away a safe distance from the horde, and had switched to using his hoverboard's weapons, which had more power than any of his ectoguns.

"I think it's working!" July yelled, sounding excited as she saw their numbers dwindle. There must have been at least eighty of them that split off from the main group to take them, but now there were probably around forty. However, it did look like they were getting awfully close to merging, which is something the redheaded girl managed to miss.

Right up until they did.

In all three locations, the Seekers merged together, forming what appeared to be a giant, black, faceless spirit. The one that hovered before July and Kale now was about the size of a one story building, smaller than the others since they had more chance to chip away at them than the others.

Kale swore underneath his breath, backing up towards the school roof. He hoped everyone had taken shelter by now, because he could tell things were going to get ugly. He lowered his board down to July, glancing at her. "Get on!" He instructed her. "If we keep fighting here, we'll cause damage to the school. We have to get them to follow us someplace else!"

"Ah, right!" July nodded, grabbing onto the hand that Kale extended. She wrapped one arm around his waist, trying to keep her grip on both him and the Fenton Cannon. Despite the somewhat dire situation the two found themselves in now, July couldn't help but turn red from how close they were. She could almost hear Kale's heart beating in his chest.

Just then, the merged Seeker horde lunged, and Kale swore, barely getting out of the way in time. The Seekers moved a massive hand towards them, though slowly. It seemed that they had exchanged their speed for power, which he might be able to work to their advantage. As long as they could keep away from them for long enough, they should be able to blast them back into Kingdom Come.

Kale switched his board into reverse and went away from the Seekers. Not looking back at July, he instructed her, "Keep firing that Canon, July! I'll handle the steering."

"Ah, yes!" July nodded, working to get her balance. She grabbed onto Kale's shoulder, trying to steady her feet, regretting her choice of weapon somewhat now, as she tried to work out how to manage this. "Ah~ I don't think I can!"

Kale groaned, glancing back at her for a second. "Give it to me then, and just hang on and don't do anything stupid." He told her, taking the canon from her. Readying it, he pointed it towards the center of the horde, and fired.

At first it seemed to be a success, breaking apart the horde. Kale felt himself grinning- this was going to be easier than he thought it was. However, that look quickly faded as he realized that the Seekers had not vanished, and were already reassembling themselves.

"Oh. Well. Crap."

The Fentons, meanwhile, had just realized this problem as well. Maddie swore, she had thought firing a high powered shot to the chest would work. "Jack, I don't think we can knock them off individually!" She called over to him. "We're going to have to try and destroy them all at once!"

"Do we even have something for that?" Jack called over to her. "I don't know if we have something with that much power, Maddie!"

Maddie bit her lip, thinking. She couldn't do it for long, however, as the merged Seeker horde slammed down it's fist against their ghost shield, creating a large crack in it. She didn't waste any time firing off two more shots, but all she got was the same result. "Well, try and think of something else then! What else do we have Jack? There has to be something!"

Jack paused for a moment, but then seemed to remember something. "I've got it, Maddie! Why don't we use the Fenton Crammer?" Jack looked over towards her, gesturing towards the horde. "We could shrink them down in size, and could easily destroy them with no problems!"

Maddie grinned at her husband. For all that people called him the less competent of the two, he did have his moments. "That's a great idea, Jack! You run and get it, and I'll hold them off. Don't take too long though, I don't know how much longer they have before they'll break through."

"On it, Maddie!" Jack told her, heading down as fast as he could to their lab, where it was kept. Maddie turned her attention on the Seeker horde, wincing as the formed another crack in the Ghost Shield. While normally, Seekers didn't have any problems with the thing, it seemed that being merged together made them lose certain advantages. However, they seemed to make up for it be converting all of that into sheer power.

Gritting her teeth, Maddie kneeled down and continued to fire at them, non-stop. If she could keep them busy regenerating while Jack fetched the Fenton Crammer, she could probably manage to hold them off. It might take a bit for him to come back, she knew, they weren't as young as they used to be, and Jack had never really moved that fast besides.

A minute or two passed before Jack managed to return, and Maddie's trigger finger had grown numb. She looked relieved to see him once he came bursting through the door. Wasting no time, Jack turned on the Fenton Crammer, switching it to it's shrink setting, and fired away at the Seekers.

The massive merged horde slowly seemed to shrink in size, until the Fentons could barely see it. Before they faded from visibility, Maddie fired off one last shot. There was a small flash of light, and then everything seemed to be quiet.

"Are they gone?" Jack asked, not certain, half expecting them to pop back up any second now.

Maddie heaved a sigh. "Yes, I think so Jack." She told him, smiling. "Come on, help me get to my feet. We still have more work to do."

"Well, shit, I really don't like the looks of this." Kyle remarked, glancing up at the merged Seeker horde. "I've never seen them do that before." He glanced back at Erik, who had managed to get to his feet and shake off his earlier moment of fear. "What do you think we should do?"

"Not stand here, for one thing?" Erik asked, grabbing Kyle by the arm. "Come on, let's get to some place that's less prone to collapsing around us."

"Ah, so you're going to use that, then?" Kyle asked, as Erik turned intangible, dragging him through a building with him. The Seeker horde seemed to follow behind them, phasing through the building as it lurched, but it didn't seem to be coming too quickly.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to use that." Erik glanced back at him as they came out the other end of the building. "You know, unless you'd like to do something showy."

"And what exactly would you expect me to do?" Kyle gave him a look, half-grinning. "After all, I'm only human. You're the one with the superhuman powers."

"Ah, well, there is that." Erik rolled his eyes. He came to a stop, looking around, and spotted a fire escape. "Come on, let's get up that." He pointed towards it. "I can do it from the top of that building. I don't think anyone's around anyways."

"Aw, you know I would take care of anyone that saw you." Kyle assured him, following up behind the white haired teenager as he hurried up the stairs. The Seekers weren't too far behind them, and despite their slow speed, they were catching up.

"Well, yeah, but knowing the way you take care of people, I'd rather not have to deal with that." Erik glanced back at him, orchid eyes then moving to check the progress of the Seekers. They finished getting up the fire escape, hoping over the ledge to the top of the building. Erik glanced around for a moment, then motioned for Kyle to stand back.

"If this doesn't take care of them, I'll leave the rest to you." Erik grinned at him. "My energy is running low already. Consider it as an early birthday present."

"Oh, thanks a lot. It's just what I've always wanted!" Kyle responded. "Amazing you've lasted this long anyways, Erik, seeing as it's the end of the month and all. Don't worry, I'll track you down a perfect meal after this."

"You'd better." Erik told him, before he focused on the Seekers. They were almost upon them now, readying to lunge at them any second. Erik closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath for a long moment, and then let it out.

In the form of a ghostly wail, that is. The sound ripped through the area, shattering any glass that had the poor fortune to be nearby. The sonic waves washed over the Seekers, and slowly, but surely, they began to dissipate, leaving behind nothing in their wake. The ground rumbled underneath the quake of the blast, threatening to knock the two men off their feet, but they managed to hold their ground.

When it was over, Erik's orchid eyes opened, and he did begin to lose his footing. Kyle moved to help him, holding him up by his shoulders. "Hey, Kyle?" Erik glanced up at him. "I'm about to pass out right now, you know?"

"Yeah?" He asked, looking down. "What about it?"

The half-ghost shot his friend a threatening glare. "Don't do anything funny to be while I'm unconscious this time."

Kyle only grinned at him. "Don't worry, Erik, I would never dream of doing such a thing! After all, we're friends aren't we?"

"Yeah, I know." He told him, his eyes sliding shut. "That's what worries me."

"What do we do, Kale?" July asked him, as they retreated away from the Seekers. The horde kept on following them, single-minded in it's pursuit. Kale had tried to fire off several more shots at it, wondering if the first time was a fluke, but to no avail. They just didn't seem to want to die today.

"We'll think of something." Kale told her, trying to keep calm. Already, though his head was starting to pound from the strain of his customized visor, making it hard for him to navigate on his board. It didn't help that they were doing it backwards, either. Ugh, he would need some ice for his head after all of this was over.

He paused then, something coming to mind. "July, do you have your cell phone?" He asked her, not sparing a look back at her.

"Yeah, why?" July asked. "Are we going to call for backup?"

"Something like that." Kale told her. "You have Solaria's phone number, right?" He asked. "I need you to call her and try to convince her to come out here. I know she really doesn't like these things, but tell her we'll keep them distracted so they don't notice her."

"Yeah, sure, okay." July blinked, pulling her cell phone out of a pouch strapped around her belt. She found Solaria's number and called it. "Sol? Hey, Sol?" She spoke then, hearing the phone being picked up. "No, wait, don't hang up, Sol! It's July! No, really, please don't hang up!" She protested. "We need your help, Kale and I, please?" She asked into the phone. "Yeah, yeah, I know that, but don't worry! The two of us will keep them distracted until you can do your thing."

"Yes, yes, I promise, we will!" July assured her. "I know there's an awful lot of them, and I know you don't even like seeing one of them, but please?" She asked. "I don't like them either, you know!" She paused then. "Yeah? Yeah, okay. Alright. I'll tell him."

She hung up then, tucking her phone away. "She said she's going to come, but you owe her a big favor now."

"Great." Kale grinned, stopping the hoverboard. "Grab one of the smaller ectopistols from the board, July and give me a hand." He told her. He readied the Fenton Cannon once more, firing a volley of shots towards the Seekers.

July nodded, kneeling down to pull one of the compartments on the board open. Trying to be careful, she grabbed the first ectopistol she saw- and then promptly dropped it. She winced a little, glancing over at Kale. He didn't seem to notice, thankfully, but she was sure to hear about it later. Ghost technology wasn't exactly cheap to make. She was more careful with the second ectopistol, and managed to grab it with no problems.

Grabbing hold of it, she joined Kale in firing off shots towards the Seekers. After awhile, she spotted Solaria out of the corner of her eye. Tapping on Kale's shoulder, she pointed towards the ghost girl as she approached. She was being rather cautious, both because of the Seekers and because she didn't know if anyone was watching.

Jack and Maddie had decided to keep Solaria's true nature a secret from the rest of the city, as well as Erik's. Growing up without either of their parents was hard enough, but they had wanted to give the two as normal lives as they possibly could. They had explained away their white hair as a result of Sam being exposed to ecto-radiation while pregnant- a harmless side effect, really.

After a minute, Solaria joined them in the air, hovering near the board. She glanced over at Kale, noticing that the Seekers had spotted her now. "What do you want me to do?" She asked. "And make it fast, I don't want to know those things can do to a real ghost."

Kale looked over at her out of the corner of his eye, though he did not stop his fire. "Freeze it." He told her. "Theoretically, if you do that, we'll be able to smash them apart with a few blasts from the Fenton Canon." He told her. "You have your dad's ice powers, don't you?"

"Yes." Solaria told him, nodding. "I'll do it, Kale, but like I said, you owe me one. I expect this favor to be paid in full sometime in the future."

"It will, it will." Kale assured her. "If you would please."

Solaria heaved a sigh and floated in front of them. Concentrating on her own power, she turned herself invisible, before she flew towards the Seeker horde as quickly as she could. Placing her hands in front of her, she placed her hands as near to the thing as she dared, and released her power.

The air around them dropped at least fifty degrees, and ice began appearing over the Seeker's body. It spread over the creatures until it had consumed them, freezing them in place. Solaria didn't waste a second longer there, quickly flying out of the way.

Kale took his cue once she was out of range, and fired several shots from the Fenton Canon at the merged Seeker horde. As he anticipated, the broke up upon impact, hitting the ground and shattering into pieces. He couldn't help but wince a little as some of those large chunks fell on cars, crushing them- people would not be pleased.

But it worked, it seemed. Kale finally relaxed as the Seekers went away, his shoulders becoming less tense. "Ugh, thank God that's over." He grumbled, lowering the hoverboard down to the ground. He wasn't sure where Solaria had gone now, probably off to wash her hands or something. She really couldn't stand Seekers. He could only imagine the size of the favor the ghost girl had in mind.

"You got that right!" July said chipperly, tucking the ectopistol back into his hoverboard before she hopped off of it. "I thought we were really in trouble there for a second!"

"We were really in trouble there for a second." Kale told her, glancing at her. Now that this was all over, he could feel his head throbbing in pain now. "Ugh, it feels like someone is drilling in my skull." He remarked, pulling out his normal visor from one of his pockets. Closing his eyes, he took off his customized one and quickly put his other in it's place, tucking the customized one away again.

"Will you be alright?" July asked, sounding kind of worried. "You don't need any help, do you?"

"No, no." Kale shook his head, trying to smile at her. "I'll be fine, thanks. You did okay out there today, July." He told her, sending his hoverboard back into easy transport mode.

"Really?" July's eyes lit up at the compliment. Kale had praised her! He almost never did that. "Thank you so much, Kale! I really tried my best." She knew once he found out about the surely destroyed ectopistol, however, he would reassess his opinion of her performance, but for now... well, what he didn't know couldn't hurt him.

"Yeah, I know." He told her, reaching over to pet her head. "I think I'm going to head back to school and conk out in the nurse's office for awhile. You'd better get back to class."

The girl turned almost as red as her hair as Kale's pet her head. "R-right!" She stammered. "D-do feel better, Kale!" She told him, although she secretly wanted to try and nurse him back to health. Somehow, she felt that would be a bad idea, however.

Kale smiled at her again, and headed back to school. July was left standing there for a few moments, before she realized that she had to go back too, and quickly caught up with him.

"No, don't worry Mrs. Fenton." Kyle told the worried woman over the phone. "Erik is just fine. He's resting at my apartment now." He assured her. After he had passed out, Kyle had dragged the half-ghost back to his place. Thankfully, they weren't too far from it. After that, he had gone back for Erik's motorcycle, and drove it over here.

"Yeah, really, he's going to be fine. Yes, he took care of them." Kyle assured her. "No, there weren't any problems. Really. No, really, I'm sure." He looked at the phone strangely for a second. "What? No, I'm not going to look there to check! I'm not gay, Mrs. Fenton, I don't really feel inclined to strip my best friend down to the nude."

"Okay?" Kyle paused for a second. "Fine, I'll pass the message onto him when he wakes up, but I can't guarantee you anything. Yes, I know you're worried about him, you already told me that." Kyle twitched now, growing more annoyed the longer they were on the phone with each other. Geez, this would be the last nice deed he did for that lady for awhile. Did she ever shut up, I mean, really?

"Ugh, yes. Alright." He paused. "Bye." He hung up his cell phone then, tossing it on his dresser. He ran a hand through his hair, pulling off his goggles and tossing off his jacket. He took a seat on the couch, looking across the room to where Erik was passed out on his bed.

"Seekers, huh." Kyle frowned, watching the white haired boy sleep. "Nice test. He's getting ready to move in, that old man." He frowned, leaning back against the couch. "I wonder if they'll be able to handle it?" He asked himself, closing his eyes.

After a moment's rest, he opened his eyes and got up. "Ah, right, I promised him I'd set him up." Kyle grinned, picking his cell phone back up. "Let's see here, oh. Vanessa should do nicely." He grinned, selecting her number. "Let's see what she's up to."

Maddie Fenton hung up the phone, looking over at her husband. "That was Kyle." She told him. "He called to tell us that he has Erik and that he's fine." She frowned. She didn't really trust that boy, for reasons more than just the fact that he was the son of the boy who had teased Danny relentlessly all during high school. There was always something so off about him.

"Well, that's good news!" Jack sounded relieved. "I got in touch with the school, too. Solaria, Selene and July are all fine." He told her.

"That is good news." Maddie seemed happy to hear this. She was worried about them as well. Kale must have taken care of the other Seeker horde that had split off from the main one. "What do you think that all was though, Jack?" She asked, sounding serious.

"I don't really know, Maddie." Jack frowned. "It's possible that they were reacting to the Ghost Portal opening, but I can't say for sure. We don't know all that much about Seekers in the first place, I'm afraid. Just that they're really annoying."

Maddie paused for a moment. "You don't think we blocked off his way back, do you Jack?" Maddie asked finally, looking at her husband.

The man paused, heaving a sigh. "I don't know Maddie. I really hope not."

"Do you think he's still alive?" She asked him. There wasn't a day that went by that Maddie didn't miss her son. She wished he could have been here to see his children grow up. Maybe then Erik wouldn't have turned down the path that he did.

"Well, Maddie, his is a Fenton." Jack assured her. "And we are fighters, the whole lot of us!" He grinned. "I'm sure he's just fine. He'll find his way back to us someday."

Maddie smiled at him. "Yeah, you're probably right."

AN: Next chapter should dive a bit more into Erik, and subsequently, Kyle! Stay tuned~ Also, wow, I don't think that was even really a cliffhanger. More like a normal chapter end. Wow. D: So I can do it!