A/N: I swear I had never seen 'Chuck' before writing this series, but I guess 'CompuStore' is something like the 'Buy More', LOL.

Time for some action!


Chapter 3


Tucker only half listened to his friend's rant, as he was staring intently at the two computer screens showing the code behind one of Sam's web site projects. The project had been due two days ago, and although Sam had negotiated a week's delay, he still wanted to get it done as soon as possible. With his jobs – three, currently – he never knew when he had the time to do this. So he worked, blocking out Danny's voice going on about his future brother in law – a position Tucker pitied the poor man for – and every now and then grunting in reply to make sure Danny wouldn't try to get a coherent reaction from him.

It was the silence that made him look up.

Danny had stopped pacing and was staring out of the window of Tucker's tiny two room apartment on the edge of town. The huge green neon sign of Axion hung like a rising moon in the sky, the building it was standing on invisible in the dark, and although his friends were of the opinion that he got a lousy deal on it, Tucker rather liked the view.

Not for the first time, he noticed how tired his friend looked. He himself had slept the whole afternoon, after his shift at CompuStore, which job was starting to get a little precarious with him showing up late all the time. Danny had gone to see a client, had captured a ghost with some difficulty and had then proceeded to fight Skulker in the forest. All of which had probably drained the half ghost of most of his energy. And tonight, they were on again...

"Danny," he said, "Go and lay down on my bed for a bit while I finish this. You're driving me nuts and you're driving yourself nuts. You're tired. You're not thinking straight. This is Jazz we're talking about, she knows what she's doing. This isn't another Johnny Thirteen. And if we're out again tonight for a rematch with those ghost rats, I would really like for you not to fall asleep on the job."

Danny turned around and Tucker expected another rant. Instead, he rubbed his face with both hands, smiled ruefully and nodded.

"Alright," he said, "You win. Wake me a twelve."

With that, he trudged past Tucker and disappeared into Tucker's bedroom. Tucker watched him go, mentally adding an hour to Danny's desired wake up time.


Nicolas Sawyer leaned against the wall, surveying the organized chaos of the police investigation. Several members of the forensics team were walking around, taking finger prints, examining the empty glass cases. Locked, empty glass cases. Sawyer bent forward and examined the lock of one of the cases closest to him. Not a scratch on it. It looked like the thief must have had a key, but he knew better.

He shook his head. A thief. Entering the jewelry store a little after one thirty, somehow having disabled the alarm system, opening the lock with a magically produced key and then leaving again with the entire inventory? He sighed and looked at the tape in his hand. The entire robbery was on it. He had secured the tape, had taken possession of it personally, not wanting anybody to get sloppy and accidentally let a copy of it slip to the press.

He had watched the tape in the back room, accompanied by the stressed jeweler who had been too distraught to realize what it was he had been watching. The man had literally been wringing his hands, moaning about insurance and defective alarm systems, and Sawyer had left him to it.

And now he had the tape, and he wasn't sure what to do with it. He knew what he should to, and he knew what he wanted to do. There was a discrepancy between those two things, and as long as he hadn't figured out all the consequences, he was going to keep the thing with him. Sit on it, so to speak. Let it mull in his head. Eventually, something would come out.

He stepped outside into the street and watched the heavy morning traffic go by. Another night shift which had ended long ago, another report to file – two, actually, as he also hadn't finished the one about the ghost rat infestation down at the docks, for which he might as well copy the one from the previous night – and another probably fruitless attempt to get some sleep in the afternoon while outside his house children were playing. Fumbling around his pockets for a moment before realizing that he had given up smoking, he trudged away to his car, leaving the technical details to his younger colleagues.


Jay Fletcher was sweating. His breath came in short gasps and he clutched the sink tightly, trying to regain control over himself again. Slowly, feeling returned in his fingers, his arms, his legs, and his knees buckled. Only the fact that he was leaning on the sink prevented him from sinking to the floor of one of the school's restrooms. Fortunately, he was the only one there. Unfortunately, this was because everybody else was in class, where he should be too. He was going to get a detention again.

He looked down at his bare arms and felt his stomach lurch. With a shaking hand, he opened the tap and started rinsing the blood off his arms, until only the thin lines of the cuts were visible. Then he reached down in his bag, retrieved the bandages and carefully wrapped them around his wrists. He rolled down his sleeves and looked in the mirror.

"I'm sorry," he said, "Please. I won't do it again."

The boy in the mirror shook his head and smiled.


"... So then Tucker started blasting the crates and they all ran out into the open, one after the other, and I was able to sweep them all up in the thermos. Not that it's any use, though, they'll show up again tonight and we can start all over again, fourth night in a row. There must be a portal there, because I have no idea how they get back there every time."

Danny was sitting in the back seat of Gary's rental car, leaning back, his arms spread out. He looked well rested now. Gary kept an eye on him in his rear view mirror, and every now and then caught the man's cold blue eyes, scrutinizing him. He had the feeling he was being measured somehow, but he had no idea what Danny expected of him. Even Jack Fenton hadn't been this critical, and he had been a though man to convince he didn't mean his daughter any harm.

Jazz, half turned in her seat to be able to talk to her brother, frowned. "You haven't found it yet? The portal, I mean?"

Danny shook his head. "No, and that's strange, because normally I sense... can detect it with the ghost tracker. There's something there that attracts those rats, and I don't know what it is. But if I don't find it, we'll be stuck cleaning the place out every night."

Jazz turned back and stared at the road. Traffic was heavy, especially here on the way to the airport, but at least they were moving. Gary looked at her a couple of times from the corner of his eyes, but she seemed to be lost in thought. Behind him, Danny was quiet too and Gary was relieved when finally the exit for the airport came into view. He took it, struggled his way through the chaos of parking and leaving cars and managed to get a spot relatively close to the entrance. Together, the tree of them made their way to the arrivals of the small airport.

"What flight?" Jazz asked, looking up at a monitor, "From LA, right?" She looked at her watch, and then up at the board again. "Five thirty. We're right on time."

Gary thought he caught Danny grumbling that he could have gotten there a lot faster, but he had decided in the car that the best tactic would be to ignore his future brother in law, so he did. Jazz tugged at his arm and he followed her to the sliding glass doors through which his maybe future sister in law would be arriving.

He had met Sam Manson at Christmas with the Fentons in Wisconsin, and he had liked her instantly, not in the least because she had kept a firm reign on Danny. And now, with her back in town, he really would feel more at ease. If anybody could get through to Danny that he wasn't a threat, it would be her.

Beside him, Danny seemed to be getting nervous, although when Gary looked at him, his face remained carefully impassive. He started looking around, eyes scanning the people around them in a way that Gary thought was a little too searching, a little too intense. Then he shivered, and Gary could have sworn he could see Danny's breath, even though it was quite warm inside.

Danny took a step back and was just about to say something, when suddenly all hell broke loose.

At the other end of the room, people started screaming, and suddenly the crowd was moving. Gary stumbled backwards in surprise, and would have fallen if a hand hadn't caught him in an iron grip. He looked up at his savior and looked straight into Danny's grim face.

"Take Jazz out of here," he ordered.

Then he was on his feet again and looking around frantically for his fiancee's red hair. Danny pushed him, and he stumbled forward. Jazz grabbed his arm.

"Come on," she yelled, "This way!"

To his surprise, she didn't try to run with the crowd, but instead pushed them to the side until they reached the counter of the information desk. Once there, Jazz unceremoniously climbed over it and let herself drop behind it. Gary followed her.

"What are we doing here?" he yelled at her.

Jazz shook her head and peered over the counter. Gary desperately wanted her to stay down, wanted to stay down himself too, but he also wanted to know what was going on. He joined her, crouching to stay as low as possible.

The area had almost cleared, but there were still people there, huddling together behind a pillar, or, like they were, hiding behind a counter. One person, however, was not hiding. In fact, he was squatting in the middle of the room, in plain sight, rummaging in the backpack he always seemed to be carrying. Unhurriedly, he took out several items and placed them on the floor in front of him. An odd looking gun. A thermos. A bo staff, glowing green, surprisingly long to have fitted inside...

A slight noise made Gary tear his eyes away from Jazz's brother and look at the other end of the room, at the cause of the sudden panic. And almost panicked himself. It was tall, at least seven or eight feet. Brown, leathery skin, with glowing red eyes. Claws for hands, pointy ears, vaguely humanoid shape. Floating. He gulped.

"Hush," Jazz whispered, placing a hand on his arm.

He glanced at her, and noticed she looked slightly worried. Then he looked back at Danny, who had straightened, holding the bo staff loosely in his right hand. He looked totally unconcerned.

"What is he going to do?" Gary whispered to Jazz, "Is he going to fight that thing?"

"Yes, of course he is," she whispered back, "That's what he does. I just..."

Her sentence was cut off when the... demon, for lack of a better word, suddenly charged. Gary felt Jazz's hand tighten her grip on his arm, and he placed his own hand over hers, trying to reassure her, even though he felt he could use some reassurance himself. He kept his eyes on Danny though, suddenly fascinated by the casual way the man swung the bo staff and dove to the side in one easy roll, as if he had done that particular move a hundred times. He hit the demon square in the stomach, and the thing let out a surprised, ear piercing squeal.

Danny was on his feet instantly, now holding the stick with both hands. He was facing Gary, and Gary noted the man was grinning. The demon charged, and Danny swung the staff again, this time hitting the ghost square on the chest. The demon, however, seemed to have expected that, because he managed to partially deflect the blow, suddenly change direction and rake his claw over Danny's chest. To his dismay, Gary saw Danny's gray t-shirt turn red.

The demon didn't stop there. It was on top of Danny almost instantly, effectively rendering the bo staff useless. Its claws dug into Danny's arms, and Danny staggered backwards until his back hit one of the pillars holding the building upright. Right behind the pillar, two flight attendants screamed and ran away.

The demon seemed distracted by that. It let go of Danny, who instantly let himself drop to the floor, rolled away and swung himself to his feet again in one fluid motion. The demon had lost interest in him though. It turned away from him, took two giant leaps and set after the running and screaming women in their identical blue outfits.

As soon as Danny saw he no longer had the demon's attention, he let out a shout. Gary covered his ears and winced, trying to figure out how the man could produce such a loud noise. For a moment, he had thought that by shouting at the demon, Danny had tripped it. The demon hit the ground as if he had been hit with a blow in the back. Danny walked closer, still holding the bo staff, slowly turning it in his hand.

"Right here, stupid," he said to the demon.

The demon growled and jumped up, his attention now focused on Danny again. Which, Gary surmised, had been his intention. He hadn't wanted the demon to go after the flight attendants, he wanted the demon to go after him and him alone. That was why he was taunting it, mocking it so it would attack rashly. A dangerous tactic. One that worked.

The demon charged. Danny jumped. For an impossible moment, Gary thought he was actually suspended in mid air as the demon rushed ahead beneath him, and then he was falling back to the floor again, on his feet, having turned himself around in mid-air. He swung the bo staff, hitting the demon on the top of its head. The bo staff cracked. The demon stopped and shook his head as if to clear it. A blue vortex appeared from behind the pillar, sucking the demon in.

Silence fell over the room. Danny just stood there, panting. In the distance, the sound of sirens could be heard. Somebody whimpered.

Danny straightened and looked around. Then he bent forward and picked up the remains of his bo staff, looking morosely at it. From behind the pillar, a dark haired woman stepped into view, carrying one of the strange looking soup thermoses Gary had seen both at Danny's office and at Jack and Maddie Fenton's house at Christmas. Gary recognized her instantly.

Sam Manson.

Danny looked up. "Hey," he said, "What took you so long?"

Sam smirked at him. "You were having so much fun, I didn't want to spoil your afternoon workout."

Danny grimaced and looked down at his chest.

"Nasty buggers, those demons," he said.

Sam stepped closer, lifted his shirt and frowned. "Isn't this one of the shirts I bought you last Christmas?"

"It is. Let's get out of here before the GIW decide to show up," Danny answered. He tilted his head and frowned. "I think I hear them."

Gary, by that time, had climbed over the counter again and had helped Jazz over as well. He approached the strange couple, just in time to hear that last remark.

"That's good, right?" he asked, "I mean, that's what they're here for, right, to catch ghosts?"

"In case it escaped your attention," Danny said, ignoring the jab in his arm Sam gave him, "We already caught the ghost. And I have no particular desire to meet them at the moment."

He glanced around the hall, noticing the people that were trying to negotiate their way through the rubble and find the luggage they had discarded earlier in their rush to get out.

"Come on," he said.

Grabbing Sam's suitcase, he quickly joined the crowd. He got a few strange looks from people who had either seen the fight (a few), or noticed his bloody shirt (a lot), but he ignored them. Gary held Jazz's hand while he tried to keep up with him, but had a hard time following the graceful, agile movement of the ghost hunter. He looked back at Jazz, who smiled encouragingly at him, and almost bumped into Danny as he suddenly stopped and turned around.

"Thank you," he said.

Gary stared at him. And if he hadn't been looking for it, he would have missed the discrete punch Sam gave her friend. Danny grimaced.

"For looking after Jazz," he clarified, "I guess you're alright."

With that, he turned again and quickly disappeared in the crowd, leaving a stunned Gary and a bemused looking Jazz to stare at his back.