"It's not looking good, sir," Viceroy said. He was in the lab, with one eye on the security cameras in the storage room and the other on the screen featuring a rather harried-looking McFist. McFist's appearance might be explained as a fault of the video conferencing technology, but Viceroy had built it himself and very much doubted it.

"Good? How can it look good? Marci would skin me alive if we didn't have company. Bash and the Manson girl are missing!"

"They're here," Viceroy reported. He might not know what the Manson girl looked like, but he had no doubt that she was exactly who he thought she was. "Bash is, anyway. The Manson girl ran off again after talking to Jazz." He paused. "Your storage room has been transformed into a crisis aid centre."

McFist blinked. "It's not just a storm, is it?"

Viceroy knew McFist didn't want to hear the truth right now, that he wanted to pretend all he had to worry about was the wrath of his wife. Viceroy wished that were the case as well, but he was not one to doubt what the Robo-Apes had seen—especially since he'd managed to restore their memory banks with the picture of the real Ninja and shored up their defences, so to speak. He didn't worry about a repeat of that in the near future, at least.

Viceroy straightened his glasses. "You don't need to worry about your guarantee, sir." McFist frowned but did not look at all fearful. He didn't fully understand; even if he suspected, he wouldn't voice those suspicions. Viceroy took a deep breath and elaborated, saying, "The Sorcerer is free."

"He's what? How?"

"If I were to guess, sir? Chaos."

McFist swallowed. He knew as well as Viceroy did that the Sorcerer kept trying to break free on his own, that he didn't wait for the news that they had been successful in destroying the Ninja. "I'll tell Marci I'm going to fetch the kids."

He didn't want to come. Viceroy knew McFist well enough to know that. He wanted to run away.

But he still feared Marci as much as he feared the Sorcerer (and perhaps more than, though Viceroy still couldn't decide if that was foolish or not), and he wouldn't leave his stepson in danger.

"There's more you'll want to know before you walk in," Viceroy said, holding up a hand to stop McFist as he moved to end the call. "Understandably, the chaos we saw earlier has spread. Jack and Maddie Fenton are well aware of Phantom's presence and despite failure to control the monsters earlier are still convinced they are dealing with ghosts. Jasmine remains here with her mother, organizing the ever-growing group of refugees, if you will. Jack left to fight and to drag his son and his friend back by the ear, if I'm reading the situation correctly. Both Danny and Tucker, it seems, are still out there—no doubt with your missing Manson girl."

"And the Ninja?"

"Engaged in the fight, as is Phantom. I don't know the details." He wasn't foolish enough to go out there, in plain view of the Sorcerer, and the few Robo-Apes he'd sent out to keep watch were now offline, presumably destroyed. Those data boxes the Fentons had amounted to little when ecto-energy wasn't involved. That, or he didn't have some key information that was necessary when it came to interpreting the data from them.

"But, sir," Viceroy added, "as capable and competent as Jack and Maddie have proven themselves to be, I am gathering more and more evidence that we have been fools to underestimate their children as much as we have." This was saying something, considering they had already begun looking into them, but beyond the boy's unexplained appearance when they had first arrived and his presence again at the school, along with a few snatches of conversation that yielded little information, they'd found nothing. Certainly nothing concrete, at least. Not up till now, anyway.

"What are they up to now?" McFist sounded like he didn't entirely want to know the answer.

"Again, I'm not sure of the details. But they and their friends have made good use of the Fenton communication device, and from the pieces of conversations I have been able to record and overhear, they know more about the Ninja and the Sorcerer than most of the children who grew up in this town. What I've heard confirms our suspicions that they are working with the Ninja as they no doubt do with Phantom. I don't doubt the earlier mishap with the Robo-Apes is the work of the Foley boy."

McFist grunted. "To think we ever believed he wanted to work here."

"I'm not convinced his eagerness and interest were entirely put on," Viceroy said slowly. "We could, no doubt, use his brilliance, but I would worry that he would try to undermine us or pass information on to the Ninja more than I would worry that he would run with any of our secrets to another company or deliberately create back doors so others could break in more easily."

McFist rolled his eyes. "Then consider him with the rest of the candidates for your internship job and just be ready for him if you do give it to him." That was easier said than done, though McFist wouldn't necessarily realize that. "Threaten him with the consequences of breach of contract or whatever it is."

"Of course, sir," he said smoothly. "I was thinking, if the current situation is resolved unfavourably for the Sorcerer, then it may be to our advantage to hire a known friend of the Ninja." McFist opened his mouth, but Viceroy continued before he had a chance to protest. "If we believe him to be in contact with the Ninja, we can feed him false information and lure the Ninja into a trap." The secret half of the plans would need to be conducted on paper and burned immediately afterwards, with precautions taken for cameras, but Viceroy was confident he could pull it off.

"I love it! Best idea I've had yet! Let's do it!"

Viceroy frowned; McFist didn't appear to notice. "If it comes to it, I will certainly explore that possibility further. In the meantime, I'll be sure to detain Bash so that he's here when you arrive."

"And get the jet ready!"

"Naturally, sir. Are you going to inform Marci?"

McFist's bluster went out of him immediately. "Ah, uh, when it's necessary."

If they had to use the jet, Marci would be less than pleased about having no warning. But as the Sorcerer hadn't yet targeted them, hadn't yet come to see them, then there was the slight possibility that he didn't mean to annihilate them after their repeated failures. McFist no doubt clung to that hope as much as Viceroy did. "Of course, sir."

Randy groaned. If there was ever a time the Ninja Dragon Fist (or whatever it was called) would have been useful, now was definitely it. But First Ninja hadn't ever taught him how to do it, regardless of Randy's request. The Nomicon hadn't coughed up the information yet, either, and he was convinced the door the lesson was behind was hiding or masquerading as something much more boring, because he hadn't found it despite repeated searches. And he was pretty sure that it wasn't Forbidden Knowledge. He'd never seen it there, either.

And now the Sorcerer had the Tengu Stone. That spelled all kinds of bad.

Truthfully, Randy wasn't sure how the whole 'enslaving people' thing worked, but he knew the Sorcerer did, and that's what mattered.

"Yo, Ninja!"

Randy, who had gotten to his feet, glanced over his shoulder. Howard was coming up to him, huffing and puffing, followed easily by a girl hauling what he first thought was a vacuum cleaner. Sam, then.

Sam gave him an appraising look while Howard caught his breath, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. "Nice suit," Sam said. She didn't even sound out of breath. How often did she usually have to haul things around in Amity Park?

"Uh, thanks." She didn't introduce herself, so chances were she already knew who he was. Randy pointed to the machine that had to be the extractor. "Have you tried that? Does it work?" Please, please let it work.

Sam shook her head. "It's set to extract stuff similar to the sample I gave it, but either the sample's contaminated or, more likely, the Sorcerer's stronger than the machine. These things were designed primarily for ghosts, not…whatever this is."

"How'd you get a sample?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Have you looked around? It's not that hard. Besides, Howard got some kid back to normal and I sucked some stuff up before it all dissipated."

At Randy's glance, Howard straightened up and said, "Jacques."

Yeesh, Spectra really had talked to half the school in one day. "Okay, but even with that not working, we've got bigger problems."

Sam frowned. "Bigger? What, something with those things Danny was after? I got the impression that hiding them so they didn't join up with the Sorcerer was the point."

Randy shook his head. "The Sorcerer has the Stone, Howard."

Howard looked at him blankly. "What stone?"

"The Tengu Stone! That Stone!"

"Which means what, exactly?" Sam asked when neither of them volunteered an explanation.

"We just need to get it back," Randy said. He didn't want to scare her with the truth, not when knowing it wasn't going to help her.

"Fine. At least tell me how to avoid turning into that," Sam said, pointing up to— Randy turned and blinked. It was Julian, suspended in a web between two buildings. "I like spiders, but not that much."

"Normally? You just don't let anything get to you enough that you get turned into a prime target. Now?" Howard shrugged. "I dunno."

"We are lucky he hasn't stanked any of us," Randy acknowledged. He somehow doubted the Ninja Suit made him immune, which really just made him feel like he was the mouse in a game of cat and mouse with the Sorcerer. He was going to be toyed with, and then he was going to be destroyed.

It was not the most comforting thought in the world.

Sam frowned. "There has to be some way to fight it off. There is with ghosts."

Randy thought of the time the Sorceress had set Morgan, Flute Girl, and Heidi on him, turning them all into dogs. "Yeah, well, this isn't ghosts, and there isn't."

"My, aren't we optimistic." Sam readjusted her grip on the extractor. "This won't help us now, so any ideas where we might be able to hide it for the time being where it won't be accidentally destroyed?"

"Uh…."

"I'll take it," Howard said. "You can fill Sam in, Ninja."

Sam relinquished the invention and Randy looked at her awkwardly. "Do you even need filling in?" he asked as Howard walked off. With what she would've overheard on the Fenton Phone, she already knew more than most people in Norrisville.

Sam shrugged. "I'm still a little foggy on the Sorcerer. He's evil and he's not a ghost. That's about all I know."

"There's not a whole lot more to it." There was, but nothing useful, as far as Randy knew. "There's a pit under the high school. We need to seal the Sorcerer back in there. But to actually seal him, we need to get the Stone away from him and toss him in the pit and find something to cover it with." And the entire school would probably be destroyed in the process, if the shockwave from last time was anything to go by. That might've been from the Tengu returning to the Stone, though. Would they have to release it and seal it again, too, to properly seal the Sorcerer in his prison?

"And if we don't manage that?"

"We're shoobed."

Sam's frown returned. "There has to be something else."

"If you find it, you let me know." Randy glanced back up at the building. "I've gotta go. I don't wanna leave the Sorcerer on his own for too long. You just, uh…."

"If you say keep my head down, then you're crazy. I came here to help."

"Watch your back, then, and help Howard destank the kids who can be more easily destanked, and…." Randy trailed off. "I dunno, maybe see if you can figure out a plan. Get Jazz on it, too."

Sam's lips thinned. "Fine," she said. Into her Fenton Phone, she ordered, "Jazz, tell me everything you know about the Sorcerer."

"That's about all I was able to find," Jazz murmured into her Fenton Phone. "Howard and Randy will have to fill you in on the rest."

"Yeah, Howard said he will. Thanks, Jazz."

"No problem." Jazz glanced down at her clipboard. She'd convinced her mother it was best if she assessed their supplies, keeping a record of what had been set out and what had been used, but she'd just finished counting bandages in the last box. "Listen, I won't be talking much more for a while. I don't want anyone to figure anything out."

"Least of all your mom?"

"She's already giving me a hard time about you, Tucker, and Danny." Jazz hesitated. "To be fair, she thought you came with Tucker."

"I would've, if I hadn't made that promise to Grandma Ida. Whatever; we can deal with that fallout later. You just keep doing what you're doing, and give us a shout if you learn anything."

"Your parents aren't going to be worried?"

"Nah. No more than usual. They'll figure out soon enough you guys are in town and know that's where I am."

Jazz frowned. "Even with what's going on outside?"

"You'd be surprised how much they can ignore or deny if it suits their purposes. Don't worry; Grandma Ida will help me talk them out of renewing that restraining order on Danny."

Jazz sighed, knowing Sam had no qualms about worrying her parents—but then again, her parents were more likely to hire private investigators if she went missing than to drive through the streets, announcing to the world that they were looking for her. Of course, Sam wasn't one who would worry about the backlash from her peers if her parents did do that, but Jazz knew enough about the Mansons to know they would never be seen making a public spectacle like that.

"Good luck," Jazz murmured. She'd talk to Bash; she'd seen him just a few minutes ago—looking for Sam, if she wasn't mistaken—and he could let Sam's parents know what was going on.

Jazz tucked her clipboard under one arm and began weaving her way through the crowd. Most of the people were students, but the odd adult who wasn't a teacher had gotten swept up in the flow and ended up here as well. Some were still terrified; others, confused. The confidence exuded by Maddie Fenton, however, was clearly catching. Most people believed they were safe behind the shimmer of the Fenton Ghost Shield.

Jazz knew it was a false hope, but given what she knew of the Sorcerer, she wasn't fool enough to breathe a word of the truth.

As she squeezed between the makeshift media centre and the tables they'd set up with food, Jazz found her path blocked by Debbie Kang. The girl had her arms crossed and her jaw set and was giving Jazz a look that brooked no nonsense.

"I want answers," Debbie insisted. "I've waited. It's later, so spill."

Jazz raised an eyebrow. "I'm a little busy right now."

Debbie held out Tucker's phone. Jazz took it, knowing she could give it back to Tucker when he turned up again. The list of text messages—some from her, some from Danny—was displayed prominently on the screen. "You think I can't tell when something's up? I know this town. I might be able to help."

"You don't even know what's going on."

"So fill me in! I can help."

"I don't know what's going on, either," Jazz said. Debbie gave her a sceptical look, so Jazz added, "It's true. I don't. You want to know what I know? There are monsters running through the streets. There's some crazy guy out there who's clearly bad news, and the Ninja has his work cut out for him."

"And what about Phantom? Don't tell me you don't know about him."

"He's helping the Ninja. That's what he does: he helps, the best he can."

Debbie threw her arms up. "Do you think I'm an idiot? I know there's more to the story than that. You're involved, and Tucker, who's apparently MIA, and no doubt that other girl who was talking to you earlier."

Jazz just shrugged; wedged between tables and boxes as she was, she couldn't do anything else. Debbie had chosen her ground well. "We work with Phantom back in Amity Park, so we're helping him out here since we can."

"So you're helping the Ninja, too." It wasn't a question. "What do you know about him?"

"About what you do. He's the hero of Norrisville. There are accounts of him dating back eight hundred years. He defends everyone from those monsters, helps turn them back into the people they are, and he fights off any robots that show up."

"You say that like you don't even find it weird."

"I've given up being surprised for the time being. It's easier. If you don't think I can grow accustomed to finding out I don't know nearly as much as I think I do, do some research of your own on Amity Park and you'll see why I am the way I am."

Debbie crossed her arms again and glared at Jazz for a few seconds before deciding it wasn't having the desired effect. "Fine. Just…." She trailed off, her confidence withering with her anger and her accusations. She sounded more defeated than she ever had. The stress of the situation was getting to her, too, even if she didn't like to show it. "Look, I'll be honest here. I'm trying to dig up info on the Ninja. Anything you can tell me will be helpful."

Jazz raised an eyebrow. "And you think I actually know anything helpful?" Debbie opened her mouth, probably to protest, so Jazz continued, "Look, from how he talks, he could very well be your age, so I'm not sure how this eight hundred years thing works. I certainly never dug up anything that disputed his existence for that long, and believe me, I was looking." She wasn't about to tell this girl what she knew of it all. She could admire Debbie's perseverance, her curiosity and her keen interest, but Jazz knew the importance of secrets.

Debbie frowned. "I'm sure I go to school with him. His voice sounds familiar, but I just can't…." She shook her head. "I'll worry about that later. Right now, I want to be sure that there's still gonna be a Ninja tomorrow."

"Look up Amity Park," Jazz advised. "DOMEWATCH, News 4. Lance Thunder was covering the story on the ground; Tiffany Snow was in the studio. Read up on that, and if you don't think Danny Phantom can help out the Ninja, then we'll talk. Otherwise, stay where you'll be safe and be one less person the Ninja and Phantom have to worry about."

Debbie pursed her lips. She didn't look entirely happy, but Jazz knew her type; they were cut from similar cloths. The research would keep her busy and would spark more questions than it would answer, but it would give her something to do. More importantly, it would give her something to do that would keep her out of Jazz's hair and would keep her inside, where it was as safe as it could be. "And this shield thing you guys have set up? Is that really going to help?"

Unfortunately, even if Jazz knew how Debbie thought, it didn't make her any easier to fool. She did her best anyway. "It's never failed to keep out ghosts."

"But these guys aren't—"

"Debbie." Jazz took a step closer and leaned in so that she could speak softly and still be heard clearly. The implied threat helped, too, psychological though it might be. Intimidation didn't work on Danny any more—it really hadn't since he'd discovered how attached she was to Bearbert Einstein—but Debbie knew little of her, and what she'd gleaned would hopefully paint a fiercer picture than the truth. "What's better, do you think? Running in terror with no hope of sanctuary or order in the midst of chaos?"

Debbie went back on the defensive immediately, the spark returning to her eyes. "You think we ought to be sitting ducks?"

"I don't think there's any reason in ruining hope and poisoning morale when we may not need to."

"So you're telling me to keep my mouth shut?"

Jazz met Debbie's challenge with a level look. "I'm telling you to think twice before you open your mouth. I might not have dealt with something like this before, but I've survived a crisis of this scale before, and blind panic always does more harm than good."

Debbie gave one sharp nod. "All right. But I know you know more than you claim you do."

Jazz saw no reason to confirm that. "If you'll excuse me?"

"Just one more thing. What did Pradeep have to say to you?"

Jazz had talked to many kids that night, and she didn't remember all their names, but she did know Pradeep's. "He just wanted a word with me. It's none of your concern."

Debbie clearly didn't believe a word of that, but she let Jazz pass with a mutter of, "Fine, I'll ask him instead."

Willpower, Randy had said. From what she'd learned and from what she'd seen herself, the Sorcerer preyed on the weak. He went after many of the same things as Spectra—misery, poor self-worth—and clearly had no qualms about turning terror to his advantage. He drew his power from chaos.

Jazz knew her parents thought they were dealing with an outbreak of a ghostly disease. They were convinced the transformation was a symptom of the disease. Well, perhaps it was a symptom. It was certainly the effect of the Sorcerer's power.

Debbie was right; they weren't dealing with ghosts. But that didn't mean there weren't similarities. Willpower. Most of the lectures Jazz had endured from her parents on that subject related to overshadowing. Possession. Someone with a strong enough will could fight back, perhaps fight off the ghost altogether. Some would succumb, aware of everything that was happening but being completely unable to regain control of their own body. Others—most—would be buried so deeply within themselves that they were blissfully unaware of what had happened to them until the ghost was expelled and they realized they couldn't remember what they were doing or how they'd gotten there.

But the Sorcerer preyed upon the weak, not the strong. He could perhaps take the strong—Jazz wasn't sure—but it was no doubt so much simpler to control the weak-willed. Randy had never mentioned the Sorcerer's control over other creatures, but if willpower was a factor, then either his power was limited and he could not possess them or his power over them was as much a factor of the strength of their will as it was over her own.

Jazz's hand flew to her Fenton Phone. "Howard," she said quietly, knowing Randy would be too busy to answer, "do the transformations extend to non-humans?"

"Huh?"

"Animals." The explanation came from Sam. "She means animals. Can the Sorcerer turn them into monsters, too?"

"Oh. Yeah. Definitely rats, anyway."

Jazz pursed her lips. "Sam? Can you find my dad?"

"No problem. I can't see him right now, but I can hear him."

"See if he can be transformed."

There were a few beats of silence. Then Howard's voice: "Uh, pretty sure the Sorcerer can stank anybody when he's free."

"Yeah? So has he tried stanking Randy? Danny? You or Sam? Anyone who knows how this works, even?"

Silence.

"We need to know where we stand," Jazz said. "Keep me posted." If the Sorcerer had gotten to Tucker, then she would rule that possibility out—Tucker could be seen as weak-willed in some instances but Jazz wasn't fool enough to think that this was one of them—but since they still weren't sure what had happened….

It wasn't like Tucker to just disappear. Even without his cell phone, Tucker was far from disconnected. He had already contacted her with his PDA, and she knew he carried a backup on him in case the first one was inadvertently destroyed. He wasn't careless enough to see both destroyed, and she doubted he'd be silent this long voluntarily.

She couldn't help him now; she had to trust that the others would find him. Instead of worrying, Jazz passed her clipboard off to another kid with strict instructions to give it to the woman in the teal HAZMAT suit and went to talk to Bash.

Danny was very conscious of the fact that he wasn't fighting a ghost.

It's not that there weren't similarities. The Sorcerer could send blasts of power like Danny could ectoblasts. The Sorcerer could control and transform practically anything into a weapon (which Danny had seen in one way or another with more than one ghost, Technus included) and the Sorcerer could manipulate his magic (stank, to use Randy's name for it) to form a shield, giant arm, or whatever he seemed to need whenever he seemed to need it. He was fast, he was strong, and he very unfortunately wasn't stupid.

The trouble was, he wasn't getting any weaker, wasn't showing any signs of slowing down, even the odd time when Danny did manage to land a hit on him.

Like Ember drew power from people chanting her name, the Sorcerer drew power from the chaos he'd created.

And then there was the fact that he seemed to know where Danny was even when he was invisible.

"You're a young spirit, aren't you?" the Sorcerer observed as he blocked Danny's latest attack and knocked him back with enough force that his concentration lapsed and he lost his grip on his invisibility.

Invisibility was useless; even if the Sorcerer couldn't actually see him, he could definitely sense him. Most of his ectoblasts were blocked, and he landed maybe one physical attack in ten. Danny took a breath and then focused on blasting the Sorcerer with an ice ray. To his surprise, it worked. Danny blinked, wondering why Randy hadn't tried that.

The block of ice in which the Sorcerer was encased exploded, and Danny wasn't fast enough with his intangibility to avoid the icy shards. He yelped as they tore into him, some digging deeper than others. He turned intangible for a few seconds to let them drop. Ectoplasm leaked from the deeper wounds, but the scratches were already beginning to heal over. He still had more than enough energy to regenerate, more than enough energy to keep fighting.

Tendrils of green stank twisted into arms and seized Danny, immobilizing him where he floated. Before he could go intangible again, they began squeezing, sending a spike of pain through his body and breaking his concentration. The Sorcerer chuckled. "Very young," he concluded.

Danny kept struggling, but he was going nowhere fast. He built up an ectoblast and the Sorcerer's grip loosened when he released it, scattering one arm and seeming to wound the Sorcerer's real one in the process, but all too quickly he was back in an iron grip. "Let me go," he grunted.

The Sorcerer drifted closer. Danny had lost sight of the rat a while ago and figured it might've gone after Randy. He would've split himself and gone after it if he hadn't feared he'd need all his strength to fight the Sorcerer.

He was beginning to realize that he should, perhaps, have used everything in his arsenal if he'd hoped to beat this guy on his own. He hadn't wanted to use his ghostly wail, but better to be mostly drained of energy and weaken his opponent than to be captured without even trying. He took a deep breath—

—and his eyes caught on a golden orb the Sorcerer held up. It was the Carp's Eye, the Tengu Stone.

It was the last thing Danny remembered.