A/N: I drew a picture of May, but for some odd reason, I kept drawing her top hat in the way of her face :( So You can't see her face XD! I'll put up a link once I feel like it!


A Magician's Secret

Chapter Two

May!


Back at the Manson Mansion, Danny, Sam, and Tucker were all sitting a three-sided circle on Sam's living room floor. Each had either a notepad, notebook, or folder in one of their hands, a pen or pencil in the other.

"Okay," Danny mumble,d not looking up from his blue notebook. "Sam, the genus would be your last name, right?"

"Mhm," Sam mumbled. It had been nearly two hours or so since anyone else spoke. And if someone did speak, it was usually consulting their project, or another homework assignment.

"Almost done..." Danny said quietly as he wrote down the last thing he needed for his chart. "Samantha...El...iza...beth...Manson," he murmured as he wrote. He dotted the 'i' in Elizabeth and grinned at his paper.

"Ugh, do you have to write my full name?" Sam asked.

"Sorry, need to be distinctive from all your other family members," Danny said. Sam sighed.

"Which one of you finished Mr. Folluka's stupid math assignment?" Tucker asked.

"I did!" Sam said, holding up a hand.

"And showed their work on how to get the answers," Tucker quickly added. Sam put her hand down. Sam had a thing for always using mental math. And, no matter how long the equation was, she always got it right. Tucker looekd at Danny hopefully, but the teen shook his hea.d

"Sorry, Tuck," Danny said. "I only have the first five problems done. And it took me a whole hour just to do them."

Tucker groaned and fell back into the base of the couch. He looked at his math paper, it having only the first problem complete. "I'm never gonna get this thing straight," he said.

"It's not that hard, Tucker," Sam disagreed. "Just conversions."

"I can't even spell conversions some times!" Tucker exclaimed. "How do they expect us to complete this stuff?"

"You just have to memorize all the different-"

Sam's voice was cut off but the sound of buzzing, then darkness and silence. "You've got to be kidding me!" Tucker's vocie rang out.

The lights had gone out. The lamps, digital clocks, head-lights, everything. They were in complete darkness. Even the sound of the refrigerator humming stopped. "Great, a black-out," Sam hissed. "Danny, a little help?" There was the sound of shuffling fabric and someone taking a short step.

"Uh...oh, right," Danny mumbled and there were more sounds of shuffling, this time of paper. Then, a soft glow began to illuminate the area. Sam and Tucker came back into view.

The teens gazed at each other for a hot-second when something else surprised him: lightning.

It flashed suddenly, without warning, illuminating even that space that Danny's ectoplasmic energy failed to light. Then, came lightning's partner in crime: thunder. Sam yelped in surprise. Danny's eyes shifted away from the window where he could see the tiny streams of water from the rain crawl down the glass. "Just thunder," he whispered, voice soft. He looekd right back towards where Sam used to be and he froze. "Sam?" His eyes ran across the room for her.

He saw Tucker, but no Sam. "She made a run for it," Tucker explained softly, and pointed at the couch. Danny side-frowned and stood up from his spot. He walked around the couch and noticed Sam sitting here, face burried into her knees, hugging her knees close to her body. She was shivering. Tucker came up from the other side of the couch and Danny motioned towards the fire place in the living room. Tucker nodded and walked away.

Danny, meanwhile, went to sit next to Sam. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them loosely. Sam could feel his body warmth next to her. "Sam?" he asked quietly, slowly putting a hand on her shoulder. Sam nearly jumped, but managed to keep her nerves under control. Danny hesitated as Sam looked at him now. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Uhm...uh...yeah," Sam said, trying to force a smile. But her time to fake the smile was cut short when anotehr sound of thunder and another flash of lighting filled the room. Sam found herself throwing herself into Danny, wrapping her around his neck and knocking him off balance.

Danny was surprised by this, but didn't fight her. He fell back onto the ground with a thud and Sam on top of him, clutching him close to her.

"What was that?" Tucker's voice came. A strange, red glow filled the room, and the warmth the new fire in the fire place warmed up the people inside the large living room.

"Sam," Danny whispered, trying to pick himself up while still have an arm wrapped around the girl's shoulders. "Sam, come on..."

Tucker appeared around the couch and he grinned at the two teens. "If you wanted some alone time, you could have just said so," he laughed.

Sam's eyes snapped opened and she brougth herself up at arm's length. Her cheeks flared red and her ears felt hotter than the air around her. Danny blinekd a couple of times and stared up at her.

Sam finally snapped into an apologizing fit. "I'm so sorry!" she shouted, climbing off Danny and scooting away a foot or so, giving him enough room to sit up.

Danny propped himself up on his elbows and only gazed at her. "I didn't mean to, I...," she continued, stammering and stumbling all over her words.

"It's okay," Danny cut in, now sitting down, legs crossed into a horiztonal 'X'. Sam looked at him. She could see that Danny's cheeks were also a slight pink color. Her eyes scanend his face, then her brought her gaze back down in a short nod.

Tucker snicked from behind and said then, "Are you afraid of thunder, Sam?"

"Uhm..." Sam said uncertainly. Her gaze shifted towards the left and she said no more.

"I thought you liked the rain," Danny mumbled.

"Rain, yes," Sam said softly. "Thunder, no."

Danny smiled sympathetically and reached over to put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry," he said. Sam looekd at him, frozen by his warm touch. Danny grinned at her. He let his hand drop from her shoulder, then turned to Tucker. "What do you guys say we make some hot chocolate?"

"That sounds great!" Tucker agreed.

"But there's no electricity," Sam said.

"You only have an electric stove?" Tucker asked.

"Yeah," Sam said. "My parents think it's dangerous to have a gas one."

"Well, then we'll cook like cavemen and women for once! We've got a fire-place, don't we?" Danny said, smiling as he stood. He extended a hand towards Sam. "Come on, we need your help to get around this place." Sam smiled and took his hand. He pulled her up and all three teens walked into the kitchen.

"And if there's more thunder, you can always cling to Danny for dear life! I'm sure he won't mind!" After some snapping and shooting of comments, the teens amde it to the kitchen with no ill-effect.


Only about thirty minutes later, they all sat in front of the fire in the fire place. There was a pot hanging from a horizontal pole that Danny and Sam had put together - Danny blasting small holes into the wall of the fire place, and Sam putting in the pole.

Tucker rubbed his arms, cold even with the fire. Sam sat close to Danny, leaning into the boy, the fire and warmth making her sleepy after the stress the thudner had caused her. Danny didn't really mind. He sort of liked her being that close. And the occasional death squeeze on his arm didn't really bother him either.

Tucker reached up towards the fire with his palms facing it. "Geeze, I'm freezing," he murmured.

A smile tugged a the corners of Danny's mouth, and he sighed. "Tonight has been quite a day, huh?" he said softly.

Then a sound coming from the door had all of them jumping to their feet, even Sam who was half-asleep. They stared wide-eyed at the door of the Mansion as someone pounded on it.

"You're parents are on a business trip until friday, right?" Danny asked the girl clinging to his arm for dear life.

"Uh-huh," she said.

"Who could it be?" Tucker asked.

"Only one way to find out," Danny replied. Sam gulped. Everything seemed to be happening just like in a horror movie. And though she was a big horror movie fan, it didn't mean she liked this plot. Even the dialogue sounded like some crack-pot, nutcase, horror fanatic wrote it.

She walked with Danny and Tucker towards the door. Danny put one hand on the knob and with the otehr turned the football-shaped locking device. There was a short, soft click and he turned the knob. The door opened and standing there in the rain, was someone clad in a black cape around her shoulders and reached to her bare shins. On her hair, a large top hat.

"What the..." Tucker murmured.

"Just who are you?" Danny aske.d The rain still poured down harshly, and the wind was a cold, sharp blade of wind that whipped at their flesh.

The figure lifted her gaze and looekd at the three teens. She side-grinend and Sam gasped. The girl had red-painted lips and sharp, clear violet eyes. Her hair was ling and black and pulled back into what seemed a bun on the back of her head. But trailing from her bangs to the bun, were streaks of silver-white hair.

"May!"


E/N: eh heh heh heh...I got no comment :D

--Airamé Phantom