Chapter 9: Electric Overload
Sunday rolled by rather slowly during the last week of April, mostly because the teachers were testing all the students in their various classes before mid-quarter grades closed. Odd had appropriately dubbed the week 'teacher torture week', but now that it had all passed the students were getting as far away from the school as possible. This included Danny, Ulrich, Yumi, Sam and everyone else in their little group and early that Sunday morning they decided to go to the park.
Unfortunately for Danny his ghost sense decided to go off on him and he was off in a flash, despite Sam's protests ("Remember what I said about this being like a vacation?"). The others decided to meet Danny at the park. Ulrich and Odd were playing a soccer game against Sam and Yumi while Aelita and Tucker watched and Jeremy was working on his computer.
As for Danny, well he had found the ghost he was searching for, at a nearby electrical plant. "I should have known it was you." He said absentmindedly.
The ghost had and evil small on its face as it went it one of its traditional long winded rants. "That's right Phantom, you may have defeated me last time, but now that I…TECHNUS, master of all things electric and technological have used this place to increase my power, I shall-"
It was here that Technus realized Danny was no longer there. "Huh? Where'd he go?"
The electric ghost got his answer when Danny hit him in the back of the head with the side of his fists. "You know, you should really make your speeches shorter." The ghost boy suggested, "In fact, doesn't make speeches at all."
Technus had no response; instead he took control of various electric devices in the area to form his giant robotic armor. "Prepare to be pulverized you young…whippersnapper."
"Stop with the name calling too, you terrible at it!" Danny shouted at him. The insult made Technus very angry and he fired a large electrified ghost ray at the ghost kid. Danny didn't have enough time to get away and took the blast full force and crashed toward the ground.
Danny rubbed his head and jumped away as another ghost ray from Technus came towards him and flew at him. He tried to kick his chest, but the armor was too thick and he only thing he accomplished was hurting his foot.
"Ha, ha, ha. Your puny physical attacks can't harm me!" Technus boasted punching Danny with his large fist. Danny hit a nearby wall and pushed himself off. He fired an ecto blast at Technus, but the armor was even impenetrable to that.
"Great not even ghost rays can hurt him." Danny muttered. He flew away from another ghost ray attack. "Man I've got to think of someway to finish him quickly." Danny suddenly got an idea. He flew away from another one of Technus' ghost rays and fired one of his own back, again it did nothing.
"Come on, is that all you can do?" Technus mocked, dropping his guard, exactly what Danny wanted him to do. Danny took a deep breath and unleashed a powerful ghostly wail. The armor around Technus shattered to pieces leaving him vulnerable, unfortunately Danny lost all his strength after using the move and fell back to the ground returning to his human form.
"No! This wasn't supposed to happen." With that Technus flew out of the plant. Danny sighed tiredly.
"Hey did you hear that?"
"It's came from over their!"
Danny gasped, someone was coming. "Great a Beyond Good and Evil situation is the last thing I need right now." He concentrated and transformed back into his ghost mode and flew out of the plant leaving very confused Alpha Section-I mean workers, plain ordinary non-possessed workers, behind.
-
Back at the park Yumi and Sam had successfully beaten Ulrich and Odd in a two on two soccer match. The winning goal was scored by Sam when she kicked the ball in Odds stomach knocking both of them past the 'goal posts' (two large sticks in the ground).
"Oh, yeah." Sam sheered. Aelita smiled and joined the two celebrating girls while Ulrich checked to see if Odd was okay. The purple clothed boy was lying on the ground, but sat up to answer Ulrich.
"Aside from losing a large chunk of my pride, I'm good." Odd looked over at the girls and then further away, "Well look who's decided to show up."
Ulrich and everyone else looked in over to where Odd was looking and saw Danny running over to them. He stopped, panting slightly.
"About time you got here Danny." Tucker said putting down his PDA and walking over.
"Sorry, ran into a little bit of trouble." Danny said. "Did I miss anything?"
"Only Yumi and I kicking Ulrich and Odds butts at football." Sam said exchanging high fives with the mentioned with her partner. Danny gave her a confused look, "Soccer Danny."
"Oh." Danny said, "Congrats you two."
"Yeah, well we went easy on them." Yumi said jokingly. Odd muttered something along the lines of, 'my stomach is saying otherwise'. A loud beeping noise came from Jeremy's computer, meaning that XANA had decided to make itself known. The kids all groaned at the thought.
"Great first Technus, now XANA. What else could go wrong today?" Danny wondered aloud.
"Sissi getting a date with Ulrich?" Odd suggested hoping to lighten up the mood. Besides Ulrich everyone seemed to be amused. They all hurried to the factory so they could take care of XANA quickly. Of course they weren't alone.
-
They seemed to have gotten lucky during that attack since none of Jeremy's instruments picked up any disasters and they didn't get a surprise attack from a possessed person. Even so there were a lot of monsters blocking their path and it did take awhile to deactivate the tower.
Afterwards everyone returned to the school. Ulrich, Danny and Odd played another soccer game against Yumi, Sam and Aelita. The pink haired girl had always wanted to play the sport though wasn't very good at it. Ulrich was surprised at how good Danny was though.
"How come you never joined your schools team?" Ulrich had asked after the game. Odd had gone over to the bleachers to bother Jeremy.
"Well, I was gonna try out for Casper High varsity team, but then I got my ghost powers so those plans got pushed back…indefinitely." The ghost kid answered sheepishly.
"Ah, I see." Ulrich responded getting an idea, "Hey, why don't we ask Jim if you can play for us the rest of the year."
"I don't know, I don't practice a lot and that's only two months anyway. Maybe we shouldn't…" Even as he said this the back of his head was screaming 'yes, ask him if you can play'. Ulrich seemed to be reading his mind and wouldn't take no for an answer.
"Come on, let's at least ask him. Wanna come Yumi?"
"Sure."
The two boys and Yumi went off to find Jim. Meanwhile Odd was had jumped onto the bleachers to see what Jeremy was doing. "Whatcha working on Einstein?" He asked. Jeremy looked at him and shifted around so Odd couldn't see the screen.
"I'm still trying to figure out Aelita's anti-virus." The blond boy responded.
"Oh really…" Odd said, he didn't sound very convinced. "Hey Jeremy."
"What?"
"Is working on Aelita's anti-virus the only thing you do on that computer? Hmm, hmm."
Jeremy's face turned really red as his brain unwillingly made him realize what Odd was thinking of. "Odd, are you crazy?" He yelled surprising everyone in the area, "That's –argh- why would you even think of something like that?"
"Uh, what is Odd talking about?" Aelita asked slightly confused.
"In all honesty, I don't think we want to know." Sam said then turned to enter the building, "Come on Ae, you promised you'd help me on my math homework, remember?"
"Oh right." Aelita said and followed the goth girl leaving Jeremy alone to fend off Odd as Tucker watched in amusement.
"Odd get your hands off my computer! Tucker a little help here!"
"Your right Jeremy…need a hand Odd?"
"Sure."
"GUYS!"
-
When XANA wasn't attacking the factory was generally quiet. So quiet that no one would suspect there was a super computer in it powered by a crazy artificial intelligence. The only way you'd no this is if you were part of the group who fought XANA or if you had snuck into the factory.
The latter was what the person who was watching them earlier had decided to do. Once he knew the coast was clear and no one was coming he floated down to the lowest floor of the factory, where the computers power supply was. The figure smiled as he felt the energy going through the large source.
"This is perfect. With the power inside this machine, I Technus can rule the world!" The electric ghost clamped his hand over his mouth after the words escaped it and looked around. Fortunately no one was around. "Phew, I really have to stop doing that. Now, where was I…oh yeah."
-
"Then you just press this and there's your answer." Aelita was helping Sam figure out on of the problems one their homework. Sam looked at the problem still as lost as she was before Aelita explained it.
"Sorry, but I still don't get it." She said. "This is way to hard."
"It's not that difficult."
"Well not all of us lived in a computer for their whole life Aelita."
The young girl giggled at the statement and smiled, "True." She looked out the window; no one was on the soccer field now, though it was a nice day outside. Not to hot, not to cold. Sam seemed to have been thinking the same thing because she said, "Yeah, let's hurry up and finish this so we can head back outside. Now do you mind simplifying this problem for me?"
The two girls continued to work on their homework for a few more minutes before Sam stood up suddenly, "I'm gonna get something to drink, you want anything?"
"Just some water."
"Kay, I'll be write back." Sam said as she closed the door behind her and went downstairs.
Back outside the alarm on Jeremy's computer suddenly went off. The noise caught the three boys off guard. "Don't tell me we've got another XANA attack." Tucker complained, "I mean sure it was fun the first ten times, but now it's getting a little old."
"Relax it's not XANA," Jeremy said. "It's something else…"
"Nice description Einstein." Odd said sitting next to his friend to get a good look at the computer. There were a lot of letters and numbers he didn't understand, "So if it's not XANA what is it?"
"Not sure, but we'd better get to the factory and find out."
"I'll call Danny and have him meet us over their." Tucker said taking out his mobile phone as they left for the woods.
-
Ulrich, Yumi and Danny weren't having any luck finding Jim so the decided to go back to the bleachers, when Danny's cell phone went off. Danny picked it up, "Yeah?"
"Danny? It's Tucker."
"Yeah, I know, caller id, remember?" Danny pointed out.
"Well anyway Odd, Jeremy and I just went to the factory because old Brains here ("Hey that's a good name can I use it?" Odd asked) is picking up something weird on his laptop."
"Okay we'll get Sam and meet you their." He turned off his cell phone and redialed for Sam, she didn't pick up so he left a message telling her what was going on and the three teenagers went on ahead. The reason Sam didn't pick up was because she left her phone in her room when she went to get the drinks. She climbed the stairs with Aelita's water and her drink in her hands and opened the door. "Aelita!"
-
"Oh no the powers out!" Jeremy said panicked. "Something must be draining the battery in the supercomputer, Aelita's in trouble!" He shouted remembering if the computer was shut down in anyway Aelita would suffer as well. Danny, Yumi and Ulrich showed up just seconds after Jeremy shouted.
"What's going on?" Yumi asked immediately wishing she hadn't.
"Aelita's gonna die that's what!" The young boy said slamming his hands on the not-working elevator.
"We'll go in the other way." Ulrich said and the started to run to the other side of the building. "When we first found the factory the power was off so we used the stairs, over here!" He explained as the approached a small staircase that lead to a half rusted door. Ulrich and Odd pulled the door open and the entered the computer room. "Danny find out what's going on down where XANA is."
Danny changed into his ghost mode and jumped into the floor to see what was going on at the way bottom. He saw Technus charging himself with the computers main power source, XANA. "Not you again." He said as he fired his ghost ray at Technus. The attack caught the electricity based ghost off guard, but by now he had absorbed enough power that the attack barely fazed him. Technus retaliated with an attack of his own, and hit Danny hard in the chest. The ghost boy turned intangible before he could hit the ceiling inside of the room and caught himself inside the large factory. Technus came out of the floor after him and threw a ball of electricity at the ghost boy. Danny tried to block it with a ghost shield, but it was a vain attempt and the electricity broke through the shield hitting the ghost boy.
"Argh!" Danny cried as he got hit. Inside the factory Tucker wired his PDA to a security camera to see the action. He saw Danny try to punch Technus, but his enemy was too fast and surprised him from behind.
"Man Danny's not doing to good." Tucker said showing the screen to his friends. "If only Technus wasn't running on XANA-juice then maybe he could stop him."
"Well it's not like we can short him out or anything." Odd said.
"Short him out…" Yumi thought out loud, "Jeremy there are emergency sprinklers in the factory right?"
"Well, yeah, if fires sprouted up they would go off automatically, or someone could turn them on using a computer." Jeremy said.
"Tucker, can you use your PDA to turn them all on?"
"No problem." Tucker responded, confidence in his voice as he got on it. Meanwhile Danny was doing his best to fend off Technus' attacks. He turned intangible to keep from getting hit by another ball of electricity, and fired his ghost ray at Technus. Technus was able to absorb the attack, not being hurt or anything. Danny frowned annoyed that he couldn't even scratch Technus; he did have one more option though. He took a deep breath and used the ghostly wail. Technus was sent flying into a support beam.
Danny sunk back to the floor transforming back to his human stage, rubbing his neck. "Did it work?"
Unfortunately it didn't. "Ha, ha, ha! Not even your best attack can stop me! Who's your daddy Phantom, Who's your daddy?" Although Danny feared what was gonna happen to him he couldn't help but role his eyes at Technus' poor threats. Technus was just about ready to finish him off.
-
"I got it!"
"Then turn them on!"
"On it."
-
Water began spraying everywhere shorting out Technus' powers, "Wha-what's going on?" He wondered surprised and frightened.
"Thanks Tuck I owe you one." Danny muttered relieved and opened the Fenton Thermos, sucking Technus into it. A moment later Danny's friends came up to check on him. "Well besides the terrible itch in my throat from using the ghostly wail, doing pretty good," was his answer. "Come on let's go check on Aelita."
No sooner had they returned to the school, Jeremy had sprinted for the nurses office. "Aelita!" He shouted as he ran into the door. He saw the girl he was worried about and Sam talking casually.
"You were right Ae, not a second to soon." Sam observed looking at her watch. Jeremy came over and hugged Aelita.
"It's alright Jeremy I'm fine, really." Aelita said doing her best to comfort the blond boy. Sam decided to leave the two alone and went into the hall with the others.
"So, how'd it go?" She asked.
"It's been taken care of." Danny said holding up the Fenton Thermos.
"As long as no one else messes with the computer, we'll be fine." Ulrich said. Sam looked relived, "So did you guys find Jim?" She asked wanting to change the subject.
"No, you always seem to never find someone when you're looking for them." Danny said as a person wearing a red athletic jacket came up behind him.
"You wanted to see me about something?" Danny jumped at the sound of the gym teacher sneaking up on him. Ulrich saved him from further embarrassment.
"Jim, Danny and I've been looking for you," He said hastily, "Can we talk, it's important." He dragged the teacher away from the group, and ushered Danny to follow.
"Good luck." Sam said.
"Thanks, I'll need it." Danny ran off to catch up with the other two. Sam smirked, 'yeah he is gonna need it.'
End Chapter
Here's the chapter, hope you enjoyed. Oh and incase anyone confused on Danny's comment earlier in the chapter, Beyond Good & Evil is a game developed by Ubisoft. A large majority of it involves sneaking around suspicious areas and trying not to get caught. Love that game (though I haven't beaten it.) I'm gonna get off now or else I'm gonna enter a long and unnecessary rant that I'm sure none of you want to hear. So…see ya.