Sith Just Wanna Have Fun

by beb

Danny attends a Cosplay convention and finds trouble from a short, pudgy "Sith Lord" who's determined to ruin everyone's fun. Is Danny a 'trouble magnet'

Sith Just Wanna Have Fun

Danny read down the page of his school report on his computer for what seemed like the millionth time. He checked to see that he had all the book titles properly underlined, likewise for foreign words. There were the four footnotes Mr. Lancer had required, (although the fourth footnote referenced the book cited in the second footnote. Danny hoped Mr. lancer wouldn't notice that) and the five pages in length -- without the cheating of wide margins, enlarged fonts or extra spacing between lines. Overall Danny was pretty pleased with the report, even if no one really cared why the potato became a staple of European diets.

"You call that a report" someone unexpected typed in the middle of his report in red letters. "You've put your conclusion in with the introduction, your arguments are confused and poorly sourced," it continued.

Danny looked at his computer in bafflement. True, his word processor had "grammar checking" but nothing as sarcastic or opinionated as this.

As he watched his report was being ripped apart, words highlighted with notes like "wrong tense," "subj/verb agree." and "cite not site." Then at the end of his report the invisible hand continued "Jack Fenton, you are a fat, bloated idiot! you will never get anywhere! Why I made you me assistant I'll never know! If there were a grade worse than "F" you'd get it!"

When the computer paused in its writing Danny typed in. "I'm Danny Fenton, not Jack."

"What?" the computer wrote back.

"Professor Bushrod?" Danny asked.

"That's Beaucoup Bucks to you!"

"I thought I'd destroyed you and your computer virus." Danny typed.

"Eh? I have a computer virus? When did I get that finished?"

"You're not writing from the Ghost Zone?"

"You have to be dead to be in the Ghost Zone" the disembodied hand wrote.

"You are dead."

"What! Why didn't somebody tell me that? What's the point of having update software if no one bothers to use it!" After a moment, the invisible typist backspaced over the exclamation mark and replaced it with a period.

"I thought I'd eliminated Beaucoup Bucks when I blew up his Ghost Zone Radio last summer," Danny griped to himself. "I guess Bucks downloaded a clone of himself before hand, just like he did with Technus 0.7." Looking back at his monitor Danny saw that the ghost of his father late professor had continued to mark up his school report.

"Get out of my computer," Danny typed.

"Not till you learn to write a decent report," the ghost responded.

Danny thought for a moment about all the reports his teacher, Mr Lancer, would be requiring this year. It might be useful to have someone read over them, offer suggestions for improvements before Mr. Lancer got his hands on them. Then he thought about how much the ghost, Beaucoup Bucks, a.k.a. the late Professor Harold V. Bushrod, hated his father. No. Letting Beaucoup Bucks read his reports in advance would not be a good idea. He wrote: "last warning. Get out of my computer."

"Never!" the ghost wrote back.

Danny pointed his finger at the monitor, pulling his thumb back like the trigger of a gun. "Ka-pow!" he whispered and for a brief moment his arm was covered in a black jumpsuit with white gloves. Green ectoplasm leaped from his finger exploding his monitor in a shower of plastic, goo and smoke. Danny brought the end of his finger near his mouth and blew on like. "Gotcha." he smiled.

"Oh, nuts!" he cried. My report, I didn't print it out!" He scrambled through the wreckage on his desk till he found his cellphone. "Tucker, he shouted when the call was picked up, "how good are you are recovering data from fried hard drives?"

* * *

Tucker Foley was looking at the blackened hard drive that Danny had given him. He turned it over in his hands then shook it next to his ear. He couldn't hear any thing rattling inside, which seemed like a good thing.

"So you shot your computer." Tucker asked. Danny grunted in agreement. "Why?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Uh huh," Tucker murmured as he used a dental pick to pull out some of the burned and melted ribbon cable from the I/O port. With a needle-nose pliers he straightened a few bent pins. He was about to plug the burnt hard drive into a new cable when he paused, "there isn't anything ghost related going on here?" he asked, "'cause some of this looks like ectoplasm."

"Could be."

Tucker sighed and put the hard drive down. "If there's a ghost inside this, shouldn't we be doing this at your house, in your parent's lab where the only damage done will be to your stuff?"

"Nothing's going to happen. I just need to get my report for Mr. lancer out of the drive."

"Didn't you back it up to other media. You're always supposed to back files up on two different media!"

"Have you gotten any strange e-mails lately," Danny asked, changing the subject.

"How strange?"

"I don't know, just strange."

"Outside of Nigerian princes who need my help recovering millions of lost revenue?"

"Everybody gets those. I mean something that's" -- Danny flailed his hands -- "weird."

Tucker was assembling something from parts in a box marked Fenton. It looked like a miniature Ecto-Filtration Unit. "What are some of the key words we're looking for in your report." he asked.

"Potatoes. It's all about potatoes in Germany."

"I got chocolate. A much more interesting subject."

"Almost anything would be." Danny muttered.

Tucker finally plugged in the power supply and flipped the switch on. Danny could hear the hard drive begin to spin up. That seemed to be a reassuring sign. After a moment the screen filled with a series of numbers, cylinders and sectors, byte size and other stuff he didn't understand.

"Forty Gig?" Tucker asked.

Danny nodded.

"FAT table's fried but the data sectors seem intact. We'll just scan for keywords and see what we can find." Tucker concentrated on the letters and numbers flashing across his monitor for a while. Danny was soon bored and wondered if it might not have been faster, after all, to have tried re-writing his report from memory.

"I did get a weird e-mail from T'Keisha," Tucker unexpectedly said.

"Ghosts popping out of her email again?" Tucker had met the tall slender black girl at camp that summer and hit it off with her, both being big-time techie freaks. Later T'Keisha had been a victim of an attack by Beaucoup Bucks, who was trying to take over the Internet with his clones of Technus 0.7. Danny, Tucker and Sam Manson had rushed to help her and had gotten to know her pretty well. T'Keisha lived in a suburb of Chicago, a dauntingly far distance away from Amity Park.

Instead of answering Tucker began writing down a lot of coordinates on a piece of scratch paper. When done with that he turned to Danny with a sigh.

"She wants to go to this Star Wars convention." He paused. "She wants to wear The Bikini!" Tucker finished with a squeak.

The only bikini Danny could think of was a leopard print number that Tucker had bought for T'Keisha earlier that summer while in Chicago trying to find the source of the Technus clones. T'Keisha looked nice in it but it wasn't scandalous looking or anything. Danny looked back at Tucker and asked, "So?"

"So? It's The Bikini! The one Princess Leia wore in Return of the Jedi! That one!"

"Oh! That one? I'm sure she'll look good in it."

"It's way too revealing, Danny. Guys are going to notice her! She –" Danny paused to suck in a breath and finished as calmly as he could. "I think I'm losing her."

"Because she wants to wear that metal bikini to a Star Wars convention."

Tucker silently nodded.

"It'll never happen."

"There's bound to be guys who are bigger, stronger, better looking than me..."

"At a Star Wars convention? They'll all be fat guys and nerds."

"She likes nerds."

"She likes you!"

Tucker wasn't convinced. He had tried for years to get a girl interested in him and had been shot down so many time that when a girl did show an interest in him he wasn't ready to believe it was true. But there was more on Danny's friend's mind.

"She -- ah -- joined a Star Wars club at school. They're all making costumes. Bikinis. She wants me to come to the convention with her...."

"In one of those metal bikinis? That's a scary image."

"No! Of course not. She wants to make me a Lando Calrissian costume."

Danny studied his friend's face for a long time. This was one of those rare moments when he consciously realized that Tucker was Black. They'd been friends for so long, since kindergarten, that Danny rarely thought about their different colors.

"You'll have to grow a mustache," Danny said, finally.

"I can't grow a mustache."

"Lando does. You'll need one if you want to pull this off right."

"What? You think I look like Lando Calrissian?"

"Close enough."

"You're putting me on."

"Call Sam, see what she says."

Tucker didn't say anything for a minute, busying himself again with Danny's hard drive. "Is this your report?"

Danny studied the text appearing on Tucker's monitor. "Yeah," he breathed, happily. "Print me out a copy before something else goes wrong."

Tucker hit 'print.' "Not worried about Cujo, the ghost dog, eating your homework?" he asked. "Anything else you want me to find while I've got your hard drive hooked up?"

"Nah. I never saved much on it. But send that file to my cellphone in case Lancer wants something more from it."

Tucker picked up his cellphone and plugged it into a jack on his desktop computer. He hit a couple buttons, pressed 'send.' He was about to put his cellphone away, stopped. then hit "2" on his speed dial. Sam's voice came out of the phone a moment later. Tucker explained about the Star Wars convention.

"No one looks that much like that characters they're portraying," Sam said. "You'll be fine."

"I don't know. I'd feel real self-conscious going there by myself."

"T'Keisha will be there."

"Yeah but she'll be with all her friends. She won't have any time for me."

"Then take Danny with you. For morale support."

"What?"

"How're you getting there," Sam asked.

"My mom said she'd take me, if I decided to go. But--"

"But what? Danny can fit into the back seat--"

"Mom doesn't drive." Tucker interrupted. "And she doesn't fly, so we'd have to take the train."

"No biggie. I'm sure Danny can afford a train ticket." Danny rolled his eyes to heaven as if looking for support. "You'll be staying in the hotel with your mother right? Two beds. Danny can share your bed -- I know you guys have done it before." Sam added in a hoarse whisper. She had a photograph of them sleeping together as kids. It was innocent but kind of embarrassing. "So what's the problem?" she finished.

Tucker tried to argue with Sam but couldn't think of a good rebuttal. He turned to Danny for help.

"When is it?" Danny asked.

"Thanksgiving weekend."

"Yeah? OK. If my parents say I can, I'll go."

"Good," came Sam's voice over the cell-phone. "Then I'm in, too."

"What? Sam!" Tucker sputtered. "Where will you sleep?"

"I've got a sleeping bed. I'm sure there's room on the floor somewhere. I would not miss this a million dollars."

"But -- but -- but --" Tucker protested, then snapped his phone shut. "She hung up." he complained. "Now my humiliation will be complete."

* * *

Tucker spent the weeks leading up to the convention in trying to dissuade Sam from coming along. He was afraid she was just coming along so she could laugh at him. Sam pointed that far from it, Danny was far more likely to do any laughing.

Danny's parents were a lot harder to convince to let Danny go than expected. This despite -- or because -- of them letting him and Jazz go to a comics convention in Chicago earlier that summer. That actually had been a ruse to get to Chicago where a clone of Technus, the ghost of all things technical, had been running rampage. But eventually Danny convinced them to let him go.

Mrs. Foley suffered from an anxiety disorder that prevented her from flying in airplanes. A condition that only got worse following 9-11. The medication she took for her condition also precluded her driving a car. When she needed to travel either someone else drove or she took the train. Amity Park was located on the Amtrak route from New York City to Chicago so there were several departures every day to the Windy City and the overall trip was fairly quick.

Since she was the only one who knew where the train depot was located, Danny and Sam rode their scooters over to Tucker's early the day after on Thanksgiving. Sam handed Danny a bag with several turkey sandwiches since, at the Fenton's Thanksgiving was celebrated with ham. Actually most days were celebrated with ham, Jack Fenton's favorite meat. Sam didn't eat meat of any kind herself, being a vegetarian, but knew how much Danny enjoyed a non-ham treat. So for the last few years had been making a few sandwiches for him from the turkey that her parents continued to devour.

Tucker's father drove them to the station. Danny had an overnight bag with his spare clothes, as did Tucker since T'Keisha would be bringing him his Lando Calrissian costume. Sam had a suitcase in addition to a hiking backpack with her sleeping bag tied in place. Danny didn't think anything about this since his sister, Jazz, always traveled with several bags.

The train was a revelation to the kids. The seats were large and widely spaced compared to airplane seats. Being able to run up and down the aisles countered the boredom of the several hours trip, as did the fact that they could look out the windows and watch the countryside fly by. It was nightfall by the time they arrived in Chicago. At the train station they engaged at cab to the convention hotel. The fare was as much as the Amtrak ticket from Amity Park, though at least shared between the four of them.

Rutland Place was an older hotel out in the western suburbs. It was three stories tall and sprawled over a lot of real estate. The rooms were to the left of the reception area, itself a large room filled with chrome and plastic chairs, couches and tables, and well lit with floor to ceiling windows. The convention hall was through a pair of double doors to the right of the reservation desk. Even though the convention didn't actually begin for another couple hours there were already quite a few people milling about in costumes: Lukes and Leias, various Jedis, lots of Stormtroopers, and one Darth Vader, though his cardboard based costume could have used a make-over. There was even a pair of Klingons, which surprised Danny because he thought this was a strictly Star Wars event. Sam pointed to a convention flyer which indicated that "cosplay" of all kinds were welcome.

The convention committee has set up their sign-in tables next to the doors in a corner of the lobby so after getting their room key cards, the kids lined up to get their memberships badges. Danny and Sam's were printed on plain white paper but Tucker's was on a heavier beige paper and had "S.G.O.C." printed under his name.

"What's that?" Danny asked.

"Participant badge." the Sand Person behind the table explained. "Here's your copy of the rules for costumes, times and places for judging and so on," handing a bundle of xeroxes to Tucker.

"Judging!" He squeaked.

"Sure, who you going as?"

"Lando Calrissian." Tucker forced himself to admit.

"Smart choice," the Sand Person said. "Good Luck."

"I'm in the Masquerade! I don't want to be in the Masquerade! I don't even want to be in costume!" Tucker looked to be on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Calm down, Tuck," Danny advised. "It can't be as bad as all that."

"Besides," Sam added, "you're going to be in the middle of a bunch of girls in The Bikini. No one's going to be looking at you."

That didn't seem to placate Tucker. "T'Keisha . . . . I don't know . . . . I'm kind of afraid to see what she looks like in that slave costume. I mean . . . " Tucker switched to a whisper, "It's kind of skimpy."

"What's "S. G. O. C."? Danny asked. "It's on your badge."

Tucker looked at his badge, "I don't know."

"Maybe it's a masquerade competition level," Sam suggested. "Apprentice, Journeymen, Master, like that?"

"Straight Guy with Chicks" Danny suggested.

"That would be "SG--W--C," Sam reminded him.

They came to the elevator and piled in. As the door began to close a short, pudgy kid of six or sevens years of ago, dressed in a Darth Maul outfit ran past the door into what was a small spa area. A moment later a girl squealed, followed by childish laughter. "Rugrats!" Danny thought with all the solemnity of someone all of fourteen years of age.

Their room was on the third floor. The boys tossed these overnight bags in the closet while Sam rearranged chairs near the window, clearing up room to unrolled her sleeping bag. Mrs. Foley announced that she was feeling tired and laid down on her bed, fixed a sleeping mask over her eyes. With a sigh Tucker pulled out his cellphone and sat down on his bed holding it. After a minute, with another sigh, he punched in T'Keisha's number.

T'Keisha and her girlfriends were on the same floor, just down the hall from them. There was so much conversation going on in the background that it was hard to hear what T'Keisha was saying but it sounded like she was telling Tucker to come down and get fitted for his costume.

Danny lead the way down the hall to the girls' room, Tucker following slowly behind. From his reluctant you would have thought he was a lamb being lead to the slaughter.

Danny knocked on the door and a large black girl, seeming in only her panty and bra opened the door, looked past Danny to Tucker, grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. Danny made to follow but the door was closed firmly in his face.

"I can't believe it," Danny exclaimed. "Tucker's in there with a bunch of half-dressed girls -- and I'm not!"

Sam called through the door "If we don't hear from Tucker in a half hour we're calling the medics."

The door opened again and T'Keisha stuck her head out, a towel wrapped around her body. "Sam!" she cried, giving the goth girl a quick hug and pulling her inside. Again the door was closed in Danny's face.

"What am I chopped liver?" he called out.

The door popped open and Sam stuck her head out. "Yes," she announced and closed the door again. There was a chorus of laughter from inside.

Danny stood outside for a couple minutes then decided to go downstair and get a first look at the convention. He announced his decision through the door but all he got was a distracted "ok," from inside. Miffed, he left.

* * *

Danny rode the elevator downstairs. There were several flyers taped up in the elevator. Flyers for other conventions, a schedule of events, rules for hall costumes and next to that another flyer that read -- in very large letters: Masking Tape is Not a Costume! Danny tried to imagine a situation where masking tape might be used as a costume but couldn't.

The people milling earlier in the lobby had moved into the convention hallway. The doors to the exhibit hall was open and people were wandering in and out, waiting for the start of the dance scheduled for later that night.

The exhibit hall was a large room maybe fifty feet deep and a hundred feet wide. To one side hotel workers were laying down hardwood sheets over the carpeting. The dance floor, Danny guessed. Other workers were setting up tables and chairs around the edges of the room. A band was setting up their speakers and equipment in a back corner but most of the room remained open. The better for people to parade around in their costumes. A couple tables had been set up near the door with piles of glasses and pitchers of water. Danny picked up a glass and wandered over to a chair in one of the corners to wait. He had worried for a moment that he would not be able to spot T'Keisha and her friends once everyone came down for the dance only to realize that wouldn't be a problem. Outside of a few others, they would be the only Blacks there.

Someone had brought in a life-size model of Jabba the Hut. A number of girls dressed up in the Slave Girl costume were posing next to the model singularly, in pairs and occasionally in group shots. There were a lot of guys there taking photographs.

Danny was thinking of getting up and joining them when his attention was diverted by a very pretty girl walking near him dressed in a pink harem costume from "I Dream of Jeanie". She had gauzy pantaloons over a tight-fitting satin bottom. A very small, gauzy vest covered her low-cut top. A large costume emerald was stuck in her belly-button. Danny recalled that he had read somewhere that the original actress had not been allowed to show her belly-button on TV. This Jeanie was striking a blow for belly-buttons everywhere.

Danny fumbled for his cellphone and was lifting it up to take a picture when the girl gave a squawk, squatted, and tried to cover herself with her hands. Her harem pants were suddenly down around her feet. Danny thought he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a glove covered hand let go of the pantaloons and slip out of sight behind some passing Jedis, followed by a childish cackling laugh.

After a moment the girl realized that only the baggy pantaloons had been yanked down, the solid trunks under them was still in place. With a curse, she stood up, pulling the pantaloons back in place. She spotted a convention staffer and stalked over to complain. She had moved out of range by the time Danny had recovered for his own surprise. He put his cellphone away and went looking for the half-pint Darth Maul he had good reason to suspect had caused the girl's embarrassment. Danny wasn't sure what he was going to say when he found the rugrat but the kid needed a good talking to.

"There you are," Sam called to him.

Danny turned and nearly fell off his feet.

Sam looked like hell. She had taken her hair out of her ponytail and ratted it up so it looked like she hadn't combed it ever. As a goth she normally wore a lot of mascara around her eyes but this time had applied it with a trowel, some of it running down her cheeks. Black lipstick had been crayoned around her mouth.

"What happened to you?" Danny asked.

"I'm in costume! Don't you recognize it?"

Danny looked her up and down. Sam was wearing some kind of fancy dress full of ribbons and bows, ruffles and such, all crudely dyed black. It was ripped and torn all over. "Is that the dress you took Tucker to the prom in?"

"No! That was a nice dress. Don't the flowers tell you anything?"

Danny saw that Sam was holding a small bouquet of wilted flowers, but that didn't say anything to him.

"It's a wedding dress!" Sam snapped. It's the one I wore when that Dragon Prince was trying to marry me, remember? I was putting on an act like the bride from hell to convince him he had the wrong girl?"

"Oh," the light dawned on Danny's face. "Then Tucker and I came in and rescued you."

"I was doing a good job of rescuing myself, thank you very much. You two had to burst in and make it all about beating up on each other."

"How were you going to get back from the Ghost Zone once the Prince decided the wedding was off, Huh? You needed us!"

"I'm sure Dora, the princess, wouldn't have taken me back afterwards."

"Or the prince might have decided to just eat you. He was a dragon after all!"

"Have it your way. I can't believe you didn't recognize my costume."

"I was as little busy at the time getting beat up by a dragon."

"You men are all alike."

"Isn't the idea to do costumes based on TV shows?" Danny asked. "You're just as generic mad woman."

"At least I am in costume."

"This was not about me being in costume. It was about given Tucker support when he shows up in his. Where is he by the way."

"They'll be along shortly. Come on, be a sport. Put on a costume."

"I didn't bring on."

"Go get the complimentary bathroom and a towel from the room. You can be Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

"That's lame."

"It's a costume.

"Fine if you want a costume -- here! -- now I'm in costume!" Danny has abruptly gone ghost. The slicker of light from his transformation looked like any of the dozens of camera flashes going off around the room. His jeans and Tee-shirt had been replaced with a black jumpsuit with white boots and gloves and a stylized "DP" logo on his chest.

"Danny!" Sam cried, aghast. "People will see!"

"They won't care. It's all part of the costume, right?"

And, indeed, no one had turned to look at them.

Sam grabbed Danny's arm and started pulling him towards the doors. "Here they are," she explained.

Danny hadn't seem T'Keisha's friends before. There were five girls and Tucker. T'Keisha stood out from the others because of her height and slenderness. Three of the other girls were in the metal bikini while the last, a very rotund girl, was in the white robes from the first movie. T'Keisha introduced the girls as Lashawna, Lawanda, Latonya and Janet. Janet was the one in the white robes. Lashawna as a striking beauty with a natural hourglass proportion. Latonya was a bit more bottom heavy as it were, with a long narrow face. Lawanda -- Lawanda was immense, tall and well over 200 pounds in weight. Her costume top could barely contain the immensity of her breasts, the lower half all but hidden by the roll of her stomach. Danny recognized Lawanda as the girl who had first answered the door, the one who had been in her underwear. He couldn't imagine what made her think she looked good in the metal bikini.

T'Keisha started to introduce Danny to the others when she noticed that his eyes were glowing, and froze. T'Keisha had a fear of ghosts, even friendly ones like Danny. Considering the number of times she had been attacked by ghosts it was understandable. Danny, seeing her freeze, leaned in the last foot to give her outstretched hand a quick fist bump before settling back on his heels. "Hi, I'm Danny, Tucker's friend," he said, filling in the void while T'Keisha regained her composure. "Hey, Tuck, you're looking good. The outfit looked a lot more girly in the movie than it does on you!"

Tucker's costume consisted on a grey pull-over shirt with black trim, black pants, black boots and a wide black belt. Over his shoulders was draped a grey cloak with a gold paisley inside. "I thought you were here for moral support," he squeaked. Tucker looked glassy-eyed perhaps because he felt self-conscious in his costume or perhaps he had never been surrounded by so many girls at one time. So many scantily clad girls.

"I am. I said you look better in that than Billy Dee Williams did."

"Shut your mouth," Lawanda barked. "No one bad mouths my Billy Dee."

"Well, you look good," Danny continued, "Did they give you pec' implants? You're looking kind of manly there."

"They got him to stop slouching by threatening to pinch his butt every time he does." Sam explained. "After a while he finally caught on. Hey, Tuck, want a chair?"

"No, I -- uh -- think I'll stand for a while."

"See."

"How did they get your beret off, Tuck? I thought you showered in that thing."

Not only was Tucker without his inevitable red beret but his curly hair had been greased down and brushed back into something resembling a wave. Danny was going to saw something about the mustache glued on his upper lip but a seedy looking man had just walked up to the girls and wanted to take their picture.

He had a large camera with a telephoto lens and wore a vest with lots of pockets. From one of the he produced business cards introducing himself. And from another he produced a notebook. "What's the name of your club?" he asked.

"S. G. O. C. " Lashawna answered proudly, thrusting out one hip seductively and sucking in her already small waist.

"What does it stand for?" he persisted.

"We're the Slave Girls of Color!" Lawanda answered defiantly.

Danny's jaw dropped and he turned to Sam to see if he had heard correctly. Sam was wearing a poker face. Lawanda, though, had caught his reaction. "You got a problem with that?" she demanded, shoving her face within inches of Danny's.

"Personally, no, but I suppose there are others who might have --uh -- a problem."

"What's wrong with 'Slave Girls of Color?" Lawanda shouted.

Over Lawanda's massive shoulders Danny could see a stricken Tucker whispered to T'Keisha, who soon shared his stricken look. T'Keisha came over and pulled Lawanda away. "We've got to talk, she explained, gathering the girls into a huddle.

Tucker moved next to Danny and Sam while the five girls talked. "You must have seen more of Lawanda then you ever wanted," Danny cracked.

Sam nudged him hard in the side and whispered, "behave."

"I'm just saying maybe there ought to be a weight limit on costumes." Danny argued.

"I think you've got to admire her guts in wearing a costume like that."

"She's got a lot of guts, all right."

"That's not what I meant!" San snapped and walked over to stand on the other side of Tucker. "Did they really not realize how their name would sound?" she asked.

"I guess not," he replied. "I didn't know what S. G. O. C. meant either until Lawanda spelled it out for the photographer."

"You mom would have hit the ceiling." Sam shook her head.

"What do you mean it's racist?" Lawanda shouted from the huddle. "I am a Black Woman! There is no way I can be a racist!"

T'Keisha said something back, arguing too quietly for Danny and the others to hear.

"That was a long time ago!" Lawanda retorted. T'Keisha said something back. The other three girls had been quiet during most of this. "Look, I'm not actually a slave girl," Janet suddenly said, but I am *a* Princess Leia. We're all Princess Leias. Isn't that enough. We could be "Princesses of Color."

"The East Gratiot Princesses of Color," Lashawna rolled the words off her lips in a stagy, Marilyn Monroe kind of lisp. "I like it."

"As long as we are 'of Color'." Lawanda barked. "Because we're the only 'color' in this white bread room."

They broke from their huddle and announced their new name to the photographer, a fan despite his professional looking apparel and equipment. He directed them close to the wall and took several shots. Some with Tucker and some without. And some with the girls draped over Tucker. Man, did Danny envy that. Then the photographer suggested they go over to the model of Jabba the Hut for a few more pictures.

They were just starting out when there came a scream from the near-by refreshment table. A girl in an skimpy white cloth bikini and elaborate body make-up had reached for a glass of white when it seemed to leap up in her face -- or maybe slip out of her hands, reports varied -- and splashed all over her. As she watched in horror, the orange and black tiger stripes painted on her torso dripped down and onto her formally pure white outfit. She started crying, just standing there, crying, while the ruin of her costume formed a pool around her feet.

Running away from the table was the half-pint kid in the Darth Maul costume. Danny was sure he was responsible for the accident because he was laughing in that unpleasant cackle of his. "Little brat," Danny muttered and started after him. Danny was almost to him when the rugrat realized he was being chased. He looked at Danny in surprise. Then a strange expression came over his face, like he knew Danny. He stuck out his tongue and ran behind a large group of people. When Danny caught up, the kid was gone. Danny looked high and low. even asking some of the people in the group if their had seen the half-pint Sith Lord, but none of them had.

Danny went to rejoin his friends by the Jabba the Hut statue. The water-soaked girl had been lead away by some friends and a convention staff member was trying to wipe up the spilled water with a few cocktail napkins. He explained to Sam and Tucker and Janet about the mischief making kid. Tucker had been squeezed out of the group as more and more people just wanted pictures of the girls. Janet had been more or less squeezed out as well or perhaps self-conscious of her weight had decided to retreat. Other Slave Girls were coming around and talking to T'Keisha's group, comparing outfits and gossiping how they overcame various construction challenges. In short order it was hard to tell that T;Keisha and her friends had never been to a costume convention before.

"I'm going over to see Uhura," Janet half shouted to Sam. The room had become increasingly loud as it filled up with costumers. Danny looked towards where she had pointed and saw a young black woman in a Star Trek outfit walking along side a black Vulcan. Janet set off with a determined stride. Half way across the floor she suddenly fell to the floor with a bone-jarring crash.

Danny, Tucker and Sam rushed over to help her up. She sat up on the floor for a moment, trying to clear her head. "Sorry," she murmured. "I must have tripped on my hem. I'm not used to wearing dresses." But as he was helping pull her to her feet Danny had doubts about her accidentally tripping. He had heard that childish cackle again -- but there was no one around to laugh.

They helped Janet over to some chairs where she sat down heavily and held her head in her hands. She had split her lip when she fell, so Danny went to get some tissues. Otherwise Janet claimed she was alright. Danny was coming back with the tissues when he happened to notice the long cloth hanging in the front of T'Keisha's costume suddenly fly up over her face just as a picture was being taken. There was some good-natured laughter about the accident and T'Keisha was certainly red-faced about it. What bothered Danny was that he knew there were no floor vents that could have blown her skirt up like that or any breeze coming from off the hallway. Skirts don't fly up like that without a hand attached to them. But there was no hand attached. No visible hand, that is.

A moment later Latonya gasped as her costume's top suddenly let loose and started slipping to the floor. She grabbed it and pulled it back in place while Lawanda tried to hook it back together only to have her top come undone was well. Danny had been looking right at them, so he knew that no one -- no one visible -- had snuck up and done this. He also remembered why that cackly had sounded familiar. He hurried over to Sam and Tucker.

"Youngblood's here!" he announced. "I'm sure he tripped up Janet and I think he's trying to de-pants the girls over by Jabba."

"Are you some kind of trouble magnet?" Tucker accused.

"Did either of you bring any weapons," he asked.

"Guns? No way! you got a problem with the Bloods, you take it outside!" Janet ordered.

"They're not guns. They're anti-ghost devices. God, I hate guns, too." Danny explained. Sam turned her bouquet of wilted flowers over and show Danny the handle to a Jack-o-Nine-Tails, a weapon she preferred because of its non-lethal qualities. Tuck shrugged his shoulders. "I've don't have any pockets on these pants," he said.

"That's OK," Danny said. "I'm gotta go upstairs to get a Fenton Thermos. I'll pick something up for you. Warn T'Keisha while I'm gone."

"Warn T'Keisha about what?" Janet gasped. "What's going on. But Danny had already walked behind her into the dim recesses of the corner and turned invisible before walked through the walk and flying up to his room.

* * *

Mrs. Foley was still sleeping when Danny poked his invisible head into the room. He swiftly pulled a small metal cover cylinder out of his overnight bag. It was about the size of a lunchbox thermos bottle, had several buttons and read-outs built into the side plus the word "FENTON" stenciled along the side. Danny reached back in into his bag and pulled out a small water-pistol made of colorful plastic. The words "Astro-Soaker" had been filed off and "FENTON" stenciled in its place. Danny's father had two obsessions (among many, to be honest). One was that he like to put his name on everything he made and the other was that he like building ghost-fighting equipment inside already existing gadgets. The squirt gun was filled with a compound Jack Fenton had devised that turned into foam upon contact with the air, gluing any ecto-plasmic manifestation (i.e., a ghost) in place.

Danny walked through the wall into the convention hall less than a minute after he had left. Janet was just struggling to her feet as he handing Tucker the Fenton Foamer and explaining its operation. Janet was obviously confused where Danny had been for that minute and where the Foamer and the Thermos had come from but was still too shook up from her fall to think clearly.

T'Keisha, though had seen a Fenton Thermos before and knew Danny hadn't have it with him before. "What's going on?" she demanded when Danny and the others got to her group. "It's not -- Technus, again, is it?"

"Nah, it's a ghost called Youngblood. Looks like a over-weight six year old kid. Likes to pull pranks. Tends to get carried away, though. I think I've seen him around a lot tonight, dressed like Darth Maul..."

"Oh, that little S. O. B." Lawanda interrupted. "Yeah, I've seen him around. When I get my hand on him...."

"He's a ghost," Tucker explained. "He'll slip right through your fingers."

"Ain't nobody gives me the slip!"

"You need special ghost fighting equipment, like this squirt gun," Tucker started to explain. Lawanda grabbed the plastic toy out of Tucker's hand. "So this will stop him, uh?" She sighted along the barrel. "Come on, Lando we've got some ghost butt to kick," she announced dragging Tucker off with her.

"I -- uh -- think Youngblood decided to target you guys once he recognized that I was here. I've thrown him back into the Ghost Zone a time or two. He has it in for me." Danny explained in the void following Lawanda's departure. "He may decide to give us a wide berth now that I know he's here.

"Hey!" Lashawna cried out, "Someone pinched me!" Swirling around she couldn't find anyone behind her.

"Or not," Sam replied, shaking out the arms of the Jack-O-Nine Tails from its handle container.

Latonya watched Sam waggle the short whip, then asked, "Do you guys do this all the time?"

"All the time," T'Keisha sighed. "I've yet to see Tucker that didn't involve ghosts."

"Let's spread out and..."

"There he goes," Lashawna shouted, pointing to where a group of Stormtroopers suddenly fell over, like a bunch of bowling pins. Darth Maul, or Youngblood dressed as Darth Maul, was slipping out from the pile of fallen costumes, sliding on his back like a curling stone. The costumers found their stormtrooper outfits awkward and restricting as they tried to get back to their feet. Youngblood laughed until he saw Danny barreling down on him. He took off towards the door behind the band's stage and into the service areas of the hotel. Neither Youngblood or Danny had chosen to fly just yet.

The service hall was large but packed with carts, spare folding tables, stacks of chairs and what-not. The walls were dingy and worn. But Danny was paying no attention to that. He could see Youngblood red and black painted head bobbing ahead and lengthened his stride to catch up.

The hall was quickly coming to an end but Youngblood wasn't slowing down. Danny pointed a finger at him and let go a blast of ecto-plasm. It missed the ghost-boy by inches, splattering on the door at the end of the hall just as Youngblood phases through it. Danny didn't miss a stride as he phases through the door as well.

They were out in the main concourse in front of the convention halls. Youngblood ran around, under and occasionally through costumers milling about in the hall. Danny, being larger and heavier than Youngblood, had a harder time dodging his way down the hall. He didn't want to go intangible just yet because of the panic that would cause. At the moment it just looked like two guys in costumes chasing each other through the hotel.

Youngblood raced across the hotel's lobby and into the stairwell in the guest accommodations side of the building. Phasing through the door Danny discovered that Youngblood had given him the slip. He was nowhere to be seen nor was there the sound of feet on the stairs.

The stairs lead up but also, through a closed door marked "authorized personal only" down. The door, of course, wouldn't have stopped a ghost like Youngblood, but where did it lead? Probably only a service tunnel while going upstairs there would be so many floors and directions away from the stairs in which to get lost.

"Think," Danny reminded himself. "Think like a kid. Youngblood always thinks like a kid.."

Danny phased through the restricted door and barreled down the stairs.

The stairs were metal and ran down sixteen feet in a single flight. The room below ran the length of the hotel. It was barren concrete. Pipes of various sizes ran along the walls. The large ones Danny guessed were water, the smaller ones electrical conduits. Large, bare incandescent lights were strung down the hall.

Youngblood wasn't in sight. Danny took to the air and floated down the corridor. He came to a large room about half way along the hall. Inside were a furnace like appliance, or maybe a large boiler for steam, Danny wasn't sure which. He circled around the room but couldn't find the childish ghost there. Further on was another room, filled with electrical equipment. Danny floated to the back of the room without seeing anything when a flicker of movement caught his eye. Youngblood was seeping out of one of the circuit breaker cabinets near the front of the room. When he saw that Danny had seen him he yelled something unchild-like and darted from the room but not before yanking down on a large lever on the side of the cabinet. The room was pitched into darkness.

And not just any darkness. With absolutely no windows or other operating lights the room was thrown into the kind of darkness only normally only finds in a deep cave. Danny carefully floated to where he thought the switch had been, fumbled around for a moment before find it and dragging it back into the upright position. The lights flickered back on.

Youngblood, of course, was no where to be seen.

Danny phased through the ceiling, finding himself in the hotel's laundry. A couple of maids were sitting at a table smoking cigarettes and waking a tiny TV. Keeping himself invisible he sailed past them into the corridors beyond.

A glance down the long halls shows that Youngblood wasn't here. Danny flew up to the next floor and glanced around again. Still no ghost. Danny phased through the floor into the third and topmost floor, wondering if Youngblood hadn't given him the slip by heading back to the crowded convention hall. But a movement down at the end of the hall suggested that Youngblood had been running without thinking and had run out of places to run.

Danny accelerated up to maximum speed as he barreled down on pudgy little mischief-maker. Youngblood threw some ectoplasmic fire Danny's way. It glanced off his shoulder, causing Danny to wobble a bit in flight. He responded with a stream of ecto energy but Youngblood ducked behind a laundry cart left in the hall. The energy missed and dissipated in the distance.

Danny slowed as he approached the cart, planning to pounce of the little brat when he got even with it, but the cart suddenly flew off the ground and into Danny's path. Its unexpected flight knocked him across the hall and slammed him into a doorway. A door handle clipped Danny's head and for a moment everything was swirling.

When his vision cleared, Youngblood was standing over him with Darth Maul's twin bladed lightsaber in his hand. The blades were glowing a ghostly green of ectro-plasmic energy. Danny didn't doubt for a second that Youngblood's lightsaber would cut through him as easily as they did steel in the movies. He tucked himself into a roll as the blade came flashing down, cutting the door that had been behind Danny in half.

Danny jumped to his feet but Youngblood was on him, swinging the lightsaber with the casual ease that Darth Maul in the movies. With each swing Youngblood was yelling "Ha!" and "Ah-ha!" Danny kept skipping back out of range as he tried to think of what to do.

Suddenly there was something was under his feet, tangling them up. Danny smelled coffee as he lost his footing and fell. He could see dinner tray with an insulated decanter scattered at his feet as he hit the ground.

Youngblood sprang towards him, grinning ferociously in his Darth Maul make-up. He raised the lightsaber and brought it down in a swift, unavoidable sweep.

Danny braced himself for the deadly impact only to hear a distant 'z-z-z-i-t' and Youngblood cry out in pain.

The ghost toppled to the floor, the lightsaber without power from the ghost reverted to the plastic toy it had been.

"Gotcha, you little bastard!"

Danny squinted down the length of the hall to a welcome but unexpected sight. "Do your parents know you talk like that?" he asked.

T'Keisha, sweaty, breathing heavily, her hair sticking up in tufts where the pins holding it in place had fallen out, walked up to Danny, to maybe twenty feet away before her phobia stopped her from getting any closer. Her costume was all twisted about her body from her running, but she didn't seen to notice. "Are you all right?" She asked.

"I've been better," Danny confessed. He could feel a knot on the back of his head where he had hit the door handle, and against when he fell down. It would clear up momentarily but for now it hurt a lot,

He pushed himself to his feet and shook his head to clear it. He slipped the sling carrying the Fenton Thermos off his shoulder and laid it on the floor. After a moment's concentration a ring of light grew out of his waist, widened, split in two and raced to either ends of his body. As if passed Danny Phantom was changed into Danny Fenton. T'Keisha was the only person besides Sam, Tucker and Jazz who knew Danny's secret. She had guessed the truth by reason and logic, something that always impressed Danny.

"Better?" he asked.

T'Keisha rushed over and gave him a hug. "I'm so sorry I can't do that when you're a ghost."

"I know. It's OK. Are you OK?"

"Yeah."

"You might want to fix your costume."

"Oh shot," she cried, tugging the gold-painted moldings this way and that until everything was in place.

Danny picked up the thermos from off the floor. He had set it down because it would have gone to whatever place his ghost body goes to when he transformed. He pressed a button that caused the top to pop open.

"Is he..." she asked.

"Dead? Nah. Just unconscious." Danny said. "'nother minute and he won't be bothering any else at this convention." Danny aimed the Thermos open at the fallen ghost and pressed a button marked "suck." The thermos hummed for an instantly then irresistible, invisible energies drew Youngblood into its maw, compressing the ectoplasmic being as it do so. Pressing the 'seal' button Danny returned the thermos to its sling and hung it over his shoulder. "I'll drop this off in my room and we can get back to the convention."

The room was only a short distance down the hall. Danny paused outside the door. "I want to thank you for you help just now. I wasn't expecting him to come after me with a lightsaber. I thought I was a goner.

"I just wanted to help. When I saw you and ...him ... run past the convention hall I decided I had to follow."

"But you hate ghosts?"

"I was so mad. I-- I wasn't going to let him or anyone ruin my day. Not even a ghost. I had worked months for this day. I made this costume from scratch -- sewing the febric, sculpting the plastic bits, and everything. I got extra credits from both my art teacher and my home ec teacher. They were so supportive. And I made a bunch of new friends doing this. This was going to be my crowning day when we'd all wear our costumes together. And Tucker would be here and....I – I guess I just snapped. The thought of that little punk spoiling my day, pinching my butt and trying to wreck my costume...." T'Keisha paused to collect her thoughts.

"Well, I'm glad you did. Say, where did you get the lipstick blaster?"

"You gave it to me the last time you were in Chicago fighting that Technus clone, remember? I don't go anywhere without it."

"I remember that part. But I -- I mean, there's not a lot of pockets on that costume."

"T'Keisha giggled. "Momma calls it 'a girl's purse of last resort'." She snapped the lipstick-blaster closed and stuck it down her bra. "Of course it's mostly padded up there so there's lots of room. I wish I had some of Lawanda's endowment...."

Not wanting to think of Lawanda's endowments Danny changed the subject, "what else do you have in there?"

"Oh, I've got my cellphone," she pulled it out to show him. "Some crazy glue in case we had to fix our costumes. The room keycard, some cash because Daddy always says you should have some cash on hand, and a can of mace for the non-ghost attackers. You know, your mother really to combine the ghost-blaster with the mace so a girl could be ready for anything with one can Besides Candi-pink is not my color."

By this time Danny had fixed his eyes on T'Keisha's soft leather boots, face reddened with embarrassment. "I think that was one of Jazz's color choices."

Danny slid the keycard through the reader and pushed the door open.

"Who's that?" a woman demanded. "Tucker?"

"It's Danny. Sorry. I forgot you were still here. I've just got to put this away and I'll be out of here."

"Who's that with you?" Danny turned and saw that T'Keisha had followed him into the room.

"Mrs. Foley, this is T'Keisha. T'Keisha this is Tucker's mother," Danny hoped he'd done the introductions right.

Mrs. Foley had found her glasses and pushed them on her nose. She squinted at T'Keisha. "Girl, you'll catch your death from the cold." She turned to Danny, "Where's Tucker? Why isn't he squiring this nice young lady around?"

"He's downstairs. The convention's starting and I wanted to get rid of this while things were just getting started." Danny hastily explained.

Mrs. Foley's eyes flickered to T'Keisha, "I – ah – had to touch up my costume."

"I think you forgot to check your hair." Mrs Foley advised.

T'Keisha felt around her hand, detecting the misplaced tufts. "Shot!" she exclaimed. Latonya is the only one who knows how to do our hair. I'll never get this fixed."

"No problem, I'll run down and get Latonya." Danny offered.

"Don't bother," Mrs Foley said. "I've learned a few things about managing nappy hair. Let's go to your room and I'll see what I can do."

Mrs Foley stood up and found her shoes. She took T'Keisha by the arm. "You know Tucker doesn't stops talking about you. I don't recall him being so excited about something -- or someone -- since the iPod came out. I can see why, now. I always wanted to wear that slave costume," she went on. "I was just a little thing when that movie came out but I thought Princess Leia looks so gorgeous dressed up like that, and of course later she killed that awful Jabba the Hut so I knew right then I wanted to be like her. But Daddy said no daughter of his was ever going ti dress up as a slave. He was right, of course, but he wouldn't let me dress up as Lt. Uhura, either. Said the skirts were too darn short. Of course they were short. You had legs like she had you'd want to show them off, too, right? When I was your age I had great legs. Mr. Foley always said that it was my legs that he first noticed....."

The door closed behind them, cutting any other revelations Mrs. Foley was about to make.

Danny stared at the door in disbelief. Sure, he figured Mrs. Foley would like T'Keisha, Mrs. Foley liked most people and T;Keisha was a very likeable person but this was like Mrs. Foley had found a long-lost sister. With a sigh Danny pulled out his cellphone. He needed to tell both Tucker and Sam that the emergency was over, Youngblood wasn't going to prank this convention and more. He guessed he'd better warn Tucker, too, that he no longer had a girlfriend -- he had a sister.