A/N: I'm back with yet another chapter! Hope you enjoy! Thanks to my readers and reviewers!

Disclaimer: I don't own the show.

Chapter Sixteen: Fraud

Danny

I still didn't understand Vlad's plan. I thought I had. I thought it had been simple: find the star (who happened to be my sister, which was the only complicated part I had seen), capture her, hook her up to the Machine, receive ultimate power. Instead, Vlad was wanting Phantom to gain Jazz's trust. I couldn't figure out why.

Especially now that he had told me the next part of the plan, the part that we would be doing Saturday.

He was confusing me. There was no other way to say it. Of course, I had to follow orders. I didn't question what he told me, and if I thought something didn't make sense, I couldn't bring that to his attention. Vlad was Master; he knew best. Everything must make sense in his mind. That thought had to be enough for me.

But I couldn't figure out what this part of the plan was about, or why it mattered for the ultimate goal: the goal of Vlad getting his power. Nothing was adding up.

Why bother getting Jazz to trust to Phantom if…if we were just going to destroy that hope?

Jazz

Saturday morning dawned, and no one could have touched my happiness. I was getting to spend the entire day with my little brother. What could top that?

Humming quietly to myself, I slipped down the stairs and into the kitchen. I was due to pick Danny up in forty-five minutes. That gave me time to grab a quick bite. However, Dean was already in the kitchen. His presence always proved to be interesting, and my breakfast could easily turn into more than a quick bite.

"Hey," he mumbled. At least, I think that's what he said; his mumble was hard to make out considering his mouth was full.

I laughed. "I can wait to talk until after you're finished with that bite."

I poured cereal and milk in my bowl while I waited for him to be able to talk.

"Okay," he began, leaning on the table. "I can talk now." He smiled big. I couldn't help the smile; it was just a natural reaction to Dean.

"You're up early," he noted.

I nodded. I usually liked to sleep in until at least nine on Saturdays. But today was a special day; Danny and I were going to spend every second together.

"Yeah, me and Danny are spending the whole day together."

"Cool." A few minutes passed while we both ate. "Are you spending tomorrow with him too?" Dean asked.

I wrinkled my eyebrow. That was a strange question. "No...why?"

He smiled big. "Why don't we hang out?"

That brought me up short. "Um...I guess."

He sighed. "Jazz, I don't want to pressure you into anything, but I want to try and help you realize that not every guy is going to leave you high and dry. And the chances of the exact same thing happening...well, that's really unlikely." He took a moment to let me think over what he'd said. Then he continued: "I like you, Jazz. You've got to know that. And I think if you start again with someone who really likes you, you won't go wrong."

I was sitting stone still. I hated when people brought Johnny up, and I hated when people viewed me as a wounded victim. Dean meant well, but that didn't give me any reason to talk about Johnny.

"I need to go," I stated. I stood up and set my bowl in the sink. There were no tears. There were never tears, just loathing—loathing that John had died and loathing that someone had the guts to bring it up. Patty and Sam never brought it up. But ever since I had told Dean about John, he hadn't let up. He wasn't going to give up in trying to get me to go out with him.

And even though that was sort of sweet…it was still annoying.

"Danny will be waiting. I've got to go get him." I practically ran through the kitchen door. I could hear Dean behind me, yelling my name. But I didn't care at the moment. All I wanted to do now was get out of the house and get to Danny. That was the most important thing to do.

Fifteen minutes later, I was pulling up Danny's house. The gate was already standing open so there was no hold up on making my way to the front of the house. A couple of seconds before I could get out of the car, Danny came running around the corner.

I stepped out of the car anyway. "Hey," I greeted.

"Hey. You ready?" he asked.

"Course I am," I replied, sliding back into the car. "I wouldn't be here if I weren't."

I had planned the day as best I could. We started by going to see a movie at the new movie theater. I didn't think Danny's eyes could get any wider by the time the movie ended.

"That was the coolest thing ever," he said over and over again. I laughed and agreed.

"I guess it was a pretty good movie."

He nodded, but his eyes weren't on me. He was too busy staring at…well, at everything. It was like he had never seen a movie theater before. I had almost decided not to come here, but I was glad that I had. Maybe he hadn't ever seen a movie—however highly unlikely that was. Either way, seeing his reaction was awesome.

After that, we drove around town. I showed him all the hang out spots and the places where big events happened. I was about to suggest eating at the park, when he brought it up.

"Hey, you mind if we swing by the park?" he asked. "I've heard some people talking about it at school, and I haven't had a chance to go by there yet."

I shot him a look. "That was just about where I was going to go. How'd you know?"

He looked surprised. "Oh. Well, you hadn't mentioned it. I didn't know we were going."

I laughed, and took the next right. We were close to the park. "There's this little hometown café in the middle of the park. I figured we could stop there for lunch."

His face lit up. "Sounds perfect."

The drive didn't take long, and the walk to the café was a short one. We ordered and had our food five minutes later. I picked up my hamburger and looked curiously at Danny.

"Why did you want to come to the park?" I asked.

He carefully bit into his hotdog before answering. "No reason really. I was just curious about it. Like I said, I've heard people talking about it and I just wanted to check it out."

I nodded and continued eating. Right as I was finishing, Danny stood up.

"Which way's the bathroom?"

I turned and pointed directly behind us. If it weren't for the huge bush, it would be possible to see the bathrooms from here. "It's the building on the other side of that bush," I told him. Danny thanked me and walked off.

While I waited for him, I looked around the park. It was a perfect representation of how I was feeling at this moment. Everything was beautiful. The leaves on the trees were colorful and everything seemed to be bursting with life.

It was too bad that winter would come soon and everything would start to die.

I banished that thought from my mind. Where had it come from? Right now, I could only focus on the positive. The positive was that there was life in everything at the moment—including the fact that me and Danny were together again, after such a long time apart. The negative was that soon the life would diminish. Of course, mine and Danny's relationship wouldn't diminish, but everything else would.

When I heard the rustling of the bush behind me, I didn't think anything about it. It was probably a squirrel. But when I heard voices, I froze. It wasn't the fact that there were people behind me that scared me—even though the park was eerily empty today—it was the fact that I recognized the voices.

I turned slowly, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. There they were—Phantom and Plasmius—standing right around the edge of the bush. I could just barely see them from where I was sitting. I bit my lip to keep from screaming and thought better from running away. That would get their attention for sure. So I stayed as quiet as possible, but I couldn't peel my eyes off of them.

They were whispering just loud enough that I could hear them.

"What do you think?" Plasmius asked Phantom. All I could think was that Phantom needed to hurry and beat Plasmius up and get him out of here.

Phantom sighed and crossed his arms. He glanced up at Plasmius. "She'll be easy. I can get her fast. She has no idea what's really going on."

Plasmius cracked a toothy grin, revealing his fangs. "Good. We need to get her soon, before she starts suspecting you, though."

Phantom chuckled a bit. There was something decisively evil about the laugh that gave me shivers. "Don't worry about that. She would jump off a cliff if I told her I would catch her."

Plasmius frowned. "But that's not how we want to kill the Star, Phantom. Be careful."

"I know, I know," Phantom stated, waving his hand in the air. I was still waiting for Phantom to blast Plasmius away, but the longer they talked, the more I started feeling like that wasn't going to happen. "I'm just saying that Jazz is an easy target. We couldn't have hand-picked a better Star."

I almost went into shock when I heard my name. And I couldn't help but realize that Phantom looked different. He looked cocky and confident. He looked scary and evil. He looked like he could crush me if he wanted to.

He looked like the ghost he was.

I turned away from them and looked back toward the café, but I still listened to them.

"You're still keeping an eye on her right? Everywhere she goes?" Plasmius asked. It took everything in me to not to run away. But if I moved now, they would know I was onto them. I could feel Phantom's eyes on my back.

"Always. Wherever she goes, there I am." His voice sent shivers down my arms, and the fact that he was watching me everywhere I went scared me like crazy. I couldn't believe Tucker was right. Phantom and Plasmius were working together. Phantom had been tricking me the entire time.

"Good. I'm almost ready for her. Next Saturday is the day," I heard Plasmius say.

I waited a few seconds, but I didn't hear anything else. I still wasn't going to turn back around; they may still be there. I didn't want to chance—

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I screamed, jumped up and away from the hand. I jumped up and around and took in Danny's startled face.

"Is…something wrong?" he asked.

I was breathing hard and erratically, and the look on Danny's face said he thought there was something seriously wrong with me.

"Are you okay?" he asked. He cautiously took me by my shoulders. He looked me straight in the eyes. I didn't answer him. I was still shocked from the discovery that Phantom wasn't who he said he was. Danny shook me. "Jazz…you're scaring me. What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "Um…nothing. I just…let's finish eating. Then we can finish our day," I suggested. I wasn't going to end mine and Danny's day just because I was frightened by a couple of ghosts. Besides, I felt safer with someone with me…even if that someone was the same person Plasmius had thrown in the closet last time.

Danny looked confused, but he sat back down. He picked up a chip and took a bite. Then he shook his head. "No, Jazz. We can't just finish our day. Something's got you scared. What happened?"

I breathed in a shaky breath. Then I closed my eyes and sighed. Danny wouldn't let this go.

"Yeah, something happened while you were gone." I picked at the remains of my hamburger, even though I didn't feel much like eating anymore. "You remember me telling you about how I thought that Phantom kid could be a good ghost? That I thought he might be fighting the nature of what ghosts are supposed to be?"

Danny nodded slowly, thoughtfully, but it was still clear he had no idea where I was going with my ramblings.

"Well, I just saw him and that other ghost—Plasmius. They…they were talking about me," I told him.

He raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

I could still hear Plasmius saying that this Saturday was going to be the day. The day for what? I shut my eyes. I wasn't going to leave the house Saturday. "I don't know," I answered, my eyes still shut. "I don't know...but I was wrong. Phantom isn't a good ghost. He's been tricking me. The only reason he was being nice to me was to trick me into trusting him so he could…so he could…oh, what's he going to do?" The word kill echoed in my mind. Plasmius had said kill.

Danny's eyes were wide. He stood up and walked around the table. He sat down beside me and put his arm around me. "I don't know what I can do…" He trailed off. I looked at him. He looked like he was thinking hard about something, then his eyes lit up.

"What?" I asked. I was near tears. This wasn't how this day was supposed to turn out—those ghosts had ruined everything.

Danny smiled. "Remember when you asked me if Vlad knew anything about Phantom?" he asked.

I couldn't see where he was going with this, but I nodded. "Yeah; you told me you didn't know if he did."

"Well, you got me curious so I asked him," Danny told me. "Turns out he does. He said something about not wanting to talk about it to me, but he may talk to you about it. He might be able to tell you what Phantom may do. Want me to ask him?"

Suddenly feeling much better, I grinned. "That would amazing! If I could get Vlad's advice on what Phantom can do, I'd feel better. I could even defend myself!"

Danny smiled, but his face quickly turned thoughtful. "You know, Phantom could just be putting Plasmius on. He might be pretending to be Plasmius's friend, instead of pretending to be his enemy."

"I feel like an idiot. Those two must have staged those battles…both of them—just so I would trust Phantom."

Danny didn't say anything else. We finished our lunch and finished our day. Even though I was feeling absolutely horrible, the thought of getting Vlad's advice lifted my spirits. And I couldn't help but think what Tucker would do as soon as I told him he was right about Phantom.

But more than that, I set myself firmly against the thought of ever trusting Phantom. And I felt stupid that I had ever trusted a ghost at all. Hadn't I learned my lesson with Johnny?

I went to sleep that night with one thing on my mind: Phantom's face next Saturday once he realized that his and Plasmius's plan was going up in smoke.

A/N: Review please! Thanks!