A/N: A quick update over the holidays. *grins* Happy New Year (albeit a bit early) to everyone!
Maddie saw Jack first, staggering past the Ghost Shield with one arm around Tucker and another around Howard Weinerman, one of the boys Danny and Jazz had befriended.
Then she saw Danny, cradling Sam.
She was relieved to no end that Danny was all right, but one of the kids had gotten hurt, and they'd gotten hurt on her watch. Hers and Jack's. And Jack had clearly not escaped unscathed, either, and he was no fool in the field and knew enough to never underestimate a ghost.
Maddie pursed her lips as she recalled what Jazz had told her earlier, that they were all safer when Danny was out in the field. Jazz didn't make hasty assessments. If she'd said that, she had reason to believe it.
"Hey, Mads," Jack rasped when she came to relieve the others and help her husband to a bed in the sick bay.
"Sh, honey. Just rest. I'll get the full story out of the kids." She had no doubt they knew the full story, though whether or not they would tell it could very well be another matter entirely. She felt like everyone knew a secret she did not.
"The Sorcerer was controlling Phantom," Danny said as he laid Sam on another bed. He looked tired, though he certainly had to be in better shape than his gym marks had led her to believe if he'd managed to carry Sam for any distance after being out in the field. Perhaps he'd been making a better effort to train, thanks to Sam, and she'd been too preoccupied to notice. "Sam helped break that connection, and…."
Maddie was already assessing the girl, frowning. "She seems to be in remarkably good shape for having been in the middle of a fight."
"Thanks to the Ninja." That was Howard. "He's got some healing thing he does."
Despite all her research, Maddie had never come across an instance of a ghost healing a human that didn't end up having detrimental effects. "That's not as good as it appears to be, I'm sure," she murmured. "The price of the healing—"
"—is paid by the Ninja," Danny cut in quickly. He glanced at Howard. "Right?"
"Uh." For a moment, Howard looked dreadfully uncertain, but then he schooled his features, and Maddie realized she'd be a fool to trust a word he said. "Yeah. Always is."
Maddie sighed and fitted her goggles into place before pulling her hood up. She had no idea if Sam was going to show symptoms of the ecto-disease thanks to the Ninja's healing, but if she was contagious, they were all already exposed. The best she could do now was examine Sam carefully to determine if they had anything to worry about.
"Tucker," she said absently as she gestured with one hand, "fetch some swabs from the box on the far left, would you?"
"Uh, Mom," Danny said slowly, "remember where we are. Tuck didn't cross the plastic barrier."
Oh, she was slipping if she was forgetting herself like that. Tucker had had that particular phobia since childhood. "Then would you—? Thank you." She accepted the swabs from her son, a small part of her noticing his calmness. He was dealing remarkably well with this situation, far better than she would have expected.
Jack would say he was taking it like a Fenton.
But she…. This was not the Danny who fled at the sight of a ghost. This was a Danny who looked determined, not distraught, when friend or family was injured. This was the Danny who had led his peers in a rescue, not the Danny who had hidden away during the siege of Amity Park.
"You know this isn't the first time we've done this, Mom." That's what Jazz had said. Maddie had known it to be the truth—she'd seen both her children fight ghosts, albeit rarely—but she'd never….
Danny was experienced. He hadn't just gotten his feet wet, dabbling in the family business from time to time. His time of trial and error was long over. He knew what he was doing in the field, and he'd earned himself a look that spoke of mistakes and loss and hard lessons learnt. When did this happen? Maddie didn't know. She'd blinked, and her children had grown up.
"Good news, baby! The scan's clear. I wasn't contaminated." Jack, who was no doubt putting on a brave face for the kids, jumped off his bed and trotted over with the ecto-detector in hand. Howard, certainly, wouldn't see the slight waver in his step, that his bright grin did not reach his eyes. But if Danny looked closely enough, he would be able to read the exhaustion on his father's face. In a more sombre voice, Jack asked, "Is Sam stable enough to be tested yet?"
That was one flaw in the machine they had yet to correct. It required an established baseline to be read for comparison's sake, assuming a set amount of ecto-contamination and normal vitals if no existing baseline for an individual had been preloaded into the instrument. Until they could incorporate data from more people to create a reliable approximation of the norm, the device was of limited use.
They'd initially developed it for their kids to give them the ability to check themselves over for lingering contamination after each fight—after the ecto-acne outbreak, she'd worried of a repeat and had been kicking herself for not developing it after the student quarantine earlier that year—but after an indignant shouting match with Jazz, Maddie hadn't even shown it to Danny. There was little point until they worked out some of the bugs it had. Maddie rarely asked, preferring to experiment on herself, but when she did, Jazz would agree to act as a reluctant test subject; Danny would disappear before the proposition could even be made, for all that it was for his own good.
Maddie stared at her watch, finishing up her silent counting of Sam's pulse before answering Jack's question. "Surprisingly, yes." What had that ghost done? "She seems well enough that she could merely be asleep."
Jack's brows knit together. "But her clothes…."
Her clothes suggested burning (by a concentrated ghost ray if Maddie had to guess), something certainly not denied by the colour of the skin beneath it. But the skin was pink with the newness of healing, not the angry red or scorched black of a burn.
Maddie did not believe that the Ninja bore all the consequences of this healing.
She was not entirely convinced that Sam had been the sole recipient of it, either, judging by the looks of his jumpsuit and his overall weariness.
But if Jack was clear of ecto-contamination….
"Maybe she is just asleep," Maddie murmured. The Ninja was a ghost, but that did not make him a fool. Even for the sake of appearances, he would not sacrifice all his strength to heal a human. Some of the strength needed must come from within the person. It explained Sam's deep sleep, Jack's exhaustion.
"Mads?"
She could not bring herself to believe that a ghost would do this merely as a gesture of good will. They were strangers in his town, and he had his own battles to fight. Perhaps he hoped they would not fight him, too, once his fight with this new ghost was over. That Phantom took to him was unsurprising, but perhaps the Ninja found it promising, if he had gotten any sort of story out of Phantom at all.
They had made tentative alliances before when facing a greater threat than they could handle alone. And when they had captured Phantom before, Jack had released him. Despite their efforts, Phantom remained free.
That he was free to come here was surprising, but that merely meant they did not understand him—or what drove him—half as well as they'd thought.
The Ninja, however…. In all likelihood, the Ninja hoped that with these gestures, they would deign to allow him to remain free.
"She'll be all right." Maddie didn't even reach for the ecto-detector. She straightened up and turned, saying, "Danny, Sam will…." Maddie's voice died as she saw only Howard standing there with one of Jack's emergency lollipops in his mouth.
"Danny had to run," Howard said, jabbing his thumb vaguely over his shoulder. "But, uh, yeah. She's gonna be okay?" He nodded, so confident in her answer that she didn't even need to give it. "Figured. Ninja's Art of Healing 'n' all." He wandered over to them and pointed at the ecto-detector. "What's that do?"
Jack happily launched into a spiel of the product, leading Howard over to another bed so they could both sit down while he talked.
Maddie stood frozen over Sam before lifting her head and scanning the room. She couldn't see Danny, Tucker, or Jazz.
"You know this isn't the first time we've done this, Mom." Maddie swallowed. Just how many times had they done this? What else had she and Jack not seen? What had they missed?
And what terrors had their children faced that had them bravely—foolishly—sneaking off to face this one, even well aware of the dangers as they were?
Randy found the power ball in his basement, its glow making it easy to pick out in the darkness despite the fact that Danny had thrown—phased?—it into a bag and stuck that into a box. And despite the random jerks the power ball gave as it tried to fly towards the Sorcerer, he made it to their appointed meeting place without it getting loose on him.
Trouble was, the Sorcerer had apparently gotten tired of waiting and had decided to move again.
"You've gotta hurry, guys. He's coming." Randy knew he didn't have to tell any of them who he was. "I've got the power ball, and…." He bit his lip, glancing out the storefront window and up at the churning green sky. "You know what? I'll come to you." He started running, trying to keep out of the Sorcerer's line of sight without going too far out of his way. The Fentons were going to know sooner rather than later that their shield thingy wasn't going to keep out the Sorcerer, but if Randy could cut him off at the pass, then all the better. Less chance of immediate mass panic, at any rate.
At the least the Sorcerer was moving slowly now, enjoying his freedom and calling out taunts to the Ninja to draw him back out. Randy didn't know where Spectra had gone or if that other ghost Danny insisted was around was with her, but clearly there was no point in hoping for a distraction from them. The thought of doing what Spectra suggested made something twist inside his stomach, though. He was sure it wouldn't end well.
The Ninja who believes in his strength alone is the weakest of all. Well, he wasn't relying on his strength alone for this fight. Not when he was up against the Sorcerer.
The tainted spirit poisons the spirit. He'd thought that was referring to Spectra—she was a tainted spirit if he'd ever seen one, and she definitely poisoned people's spirits—but maybe it meant this, too. The Sorcerer's power balls definitely tainted people's spirits—Julian was a prime example of that—and that was why Randy wasn't going to let anyone else touch it. Danny had handled them before, but never for very long and not where the Sorcerer could see him. This was Randy's problem, Randy's fight, and he wasn't going to use Danny as a sacrificial pawn.
He felt bad enough about doing it earlier. Howard hadn't helped, and even if Randy had kinda-sort-almost managed to convince him, he hadn't completely managed to convince himself that he'd done the right thing there. He wouldn't be able to escape using Danny as a distraction, though, and he'd need all his skills to be a good distraction.
The reflection becomes what it is expected to be. Maybe it had been a warning not to make assumptions. Maybe it was a clue about how to defeat the Sorcerer. Either way, Randy's current plan was crazy, but it had been built from the skeleton of an equally crazy plan, so that wasn't a surprise. But it was worth a shot.
Danny and Jazz met him outside McFist Industries. "How's Sam?"
"Asleep," answered Danny. He looked grateful. "She'll be all right."
"Howard and Tucker?"
"Distracting my parents and hacking into McFist's surveillance cameras to make sure the footage gets wiped. You ready to do this?"
Randy nodded, glanced at the building, then ducked between some cars and came out as himself instead of the Ninja. He didn't have to worry about cameras if Tucker was taking care of it, but he wanted to be sure no stray eyes saw him. Danny was frowning when Randy emerged, though.
Randy decided to explain before he asked. "I've gotta go in as myself. You should…." He lowered his voice and shoved the mask into Danny's hands. It was a commitment he hated to make, but he wasn't sure he had a choice. He needed to do this, just in case Danny was right about the whole reflecting thing being what he thought it meant. Besides, if they did get through this alive and successfully, he didn't want the Sorcerer still thinking he was the Ninja. "You need to be the Ninja again."
Danny looked uneasy. "The Sorcerer—"
"Can't control you if he doesn't have the Stone." That was a lie, perhaps the most believable one he'd ever told, but Danny didn't need to know that. Not yet. Besides, if the Sorcerer was going to start controlling people with his power balls again, he'd start with the guy in possession of a power ball: Randy.
Randy handed the Nomicon to Jazz. "Give this to Howard, but make sure you keep it out of McFist's sight. He knows what it looks like. Actually, just keep it out of sight, period."
Danny glanced at it; Randy had slipped the math textbook cover over it again. "Or, because it's Jazz, she could swap out that with a dust jacket from one of her psych texts. No one who knows her is gonna question that."
"I'll keep it safe and make sure he gets it when no one's listening in," Jazz promised, taking the book and hugging it to her chest, effectively blocking most of the cover from view.
"If…." How was he supposed to say this? "If something happens—"
"We won't let anything happen," Danny said firmly, a dangerous glint in his eye.
Randy swallowed. "I know, but if it does. If something does happen to me, make sure Howard gets the mask, too. He'll hold on to everything until the guy can pick them up, and he can mind wipe himself, too, to keep the next Ninja safe. I'm pretty sure the Nomicon would be happy to let him do that."
"Mind wipe?" Jazz repeated.
Randy nodded. "Every Ninja does it, once he's done being the Ninja. It protects them, and the new Ninja. Nobody's supposed to know about him. You guys'll probably have it done to you, too, once this is over."
Danny frowned at his sister. "What are you thinking?"
"Nothing, really." Even Randy didn't believe that, but Jazz continued, "It just sounds a little…extreme."
Danny shrugged. "I can see that kind of thing having its uses."
"What? But that's cra—" Jazz broke off, and her eyes narrowed. "Danny, what haven't you told me?"
"Now's really not the time for catching up, Jazz."
Jazz scowled. "You know you can talk to me."
"Let's just say I know the value of hitting a reset button."
"Danny!"
"Can you guys squabble later? In case you've forgotten, the world's kinda descending into chaos here."
The Fenton kids mumbled an apology in unison. Danny was the one who continued, asking, "You ready for this?"
"No. Let's go." Randy turned, and he heard Danny follow him.
"Be careful, you guys," Jazz said.
Randy swallowed, and Danny stopped long enough to tell Jazz what Randy was thinking: "We're way beyond that now, Jazz."
McFist arrived and almost immediately got swarmed by grateful yet concerned townspeople. He made it as far as the Fentons before Viceroy decided he wouldn't be making it to this end of the room anytime soon. Viceroy turned his gaze back to young Tucker Foley. He watched him for a while longer before he strode casually over to stand in front of him. The boy was tucked into a corner, half hidden behind a stack of now-empty boxes. His eyes never strayed from his PDA.
"You didn't really think we wouldn't notice, did you?"
Tucker didn't look up. "I wouldn't admire you if I didn't think you would."
"Really." Viceroy couldn't bring himself to believe it. "It rather looks to me like your earlier admiration was an act." He should have known being recognized for his work was too good to be true. Sure, some of Tucker's appreciation wasn't put upon—he'd said as much to McFist earlier and stood by that—but his exuberance rivalled McFist's whenever Viceroy built a Robo-Hound (or some sort of Robo-Dog, each new version an improvement upon the last) McFist could name Lance.
"What?" Tucker finally tore his eyes off the screen in front of him. "Are you kidding? No! This place is great!"
Viceroy raised an eyebrow.
"Just…things I had to do…." Tucker looked sheepish. "But it was a good tour."
"Kid, you're good, but you've got to know what this did to your chances of ever working here."
Viceroy didn't even need to voice the threat of how far their influence could reach with other companies. Tucker's suddenly sombre face showed that he knew it all too well. "Yeah," he agreed quietly, "maybe. I'm only so much use to you patching holes, right? But I had to do it."
Viceroy dropped to a crouch and leaned closer to him. "Why?" That's what they'd never figured out, for all that they now knew the kids were working with the Ninja as they worked with Phantom back in Amity Park and that they were all fighting the Sorcerer. "What—who—put you onto this?"
Tucker adjusted his glasses nervously. "Look," he said slowly, "this isn't the first time I've had to do this kind of thing. And I can still admire you for the work you do, even if I don't always agree with what you use it for. But if I hadn't found out what I did, Phantom might not be helping the Ninja out there, and you've gotta know enough about the Sorcerer to know he's better off sealed away from us than he is out here, even if you have been trying to free him."
Viceroy rolled his eyes and snatched the kid's PDA away from him, ignoring Tucker's protests. He looked at the coding on the screen for a moment before looking back at Tucker. "Our security cameras?"
"What's the point of trying to stop the Sorcerer if you figure out who the Ninja is and destroy him just so the Sorcerer can get free again?"
The kid had a point, one Viceroy wished he'd never thought of, since screening through the feed from the cameras was one thing he did regularly in hopes that the Ninja made a mistake. But now was not an ideal time by any stretch of the imagination. With the Fentons occupying McFist's business hours and Marci wanting him home while they hosted the Mansons, he couldn't activate any of the escape plans he had in place. Extracting Bash would still be easy enough, but Marci thought this whole business with the Ninja and the Sorcerer less important than her own and would refuse to flee while they had company.
And McFist never won an argument against his wife.
Viceroy fiddled with the kid's coding for a few seconds, wanting to plant a tracer that (should) relay what Tucker was trying to his McFist Pad and kill the cameras at the same time. Tucker would no doubt still be suspicious and look for signs of tampering, but Viceroy had been doing this years before the kid had been born, years before computers were this small. And if he could make Tucker even give him a sort of grudging trust by taking out the cameras, well, he was certain he could use it later. In the future, if not now. Technogeeks were invaluable, and Viceroy saw something of himself in the kid. He might not be evil genius material, but he still had skill.
"What'd you do?" Tucker asked suspiciously, eyes flying over the coding on the screen as if he didn't expect an honest answer.
"Took out the cameras," Viceroy said. "I'd rather the Sorcerer got out on our terms."
"So he's, what, indebted to you? What makes you even think he'd keep his word?"
"McFist is a gambling man," Viceroy said bluntly. "I'm less of one. I'd rather hedge my bets or avoid a potential undesirable outcome altogether." Doomsday machine aside, that is. He did enjoy glory, scarce though it was considering his business.
"So you try to save your own skin," Tucker surmised, giving him an even look. "Don't get me wrong; I look out for myself, too. But sometimes I've gotta take a risk for my friends."
That was the answer to Viceroy's earlier question: Tucker's friends. Jack and Maddie Fenton were, no doubt, completely oblivious. Looking at what the Robo-Apes had managed to garner on their kids didn't tell him anything Viceroy hadn't suspected: that the kids had worked with Phantom before and had decided to help the Ninja now. He still didn't know everything, didn't know the real reason why or know how they'd found out their information in the first place, didn't know if Phantom had had contact with the Ninja before. But he'd take what he could get.
"Well, if your interests overlap with mine, there's no reason for us not to work together."
Tucker's look was sceptical, and for good reason. "You're offering to help," he said flatly.
Viceroy just looked at him.
"Help the Ninja," Tucker continued. "The guy you've been trying to destroy."
"He's saved me before. I might as well return the favour."
"Uh huh." Tucker still didn't look like he entirely believed him. But it didn't matter if he believed Viceroy now or not, so long as he believed him later in case Viceroy ever needed to cash in a favour. "Well, I'll let you know if I need any more of your help. Thanks."
Viceroy decided to leave well enough alone for now. He'd planted the seed; that's all he needed to do right now. McFist had come for Bash, but if Marci wouldn't leave, they needed to stop the Sorcerer from making his move now. And if they could do it through some easily led teenagers and still have a semblance of ignorance to show the Sorcerer, he'd take it. The Sorcerer would, no doubt, see right through them—but if he was back in the pit, Viceroy could worry about that later.
He was used to coming up with plans on short notice. If he actually had some decent time to think, he could swallow his fear of the Sorcerer long enough to come up with a plan that wouldn't be easily dismantled. Viceroy was nothing if not confident in his abilities.
Randy had expected more protests from Danny on the plan once Jazz was gone, but there were none. All he got was a level, knowing look that told Randy that, as much as he could, Danny understood. It didn't give Randy a level of confidence, exactly, or even reassurance that this wasn't a completely stupid, reckless idea—because it was, it really, really was—but it was support for his completely stupid, reckless idea, and crazily enough, that's what Randy needed right now.
Danny had long since disappeared—getting into position, he called it—so it felt like Randy was on his own, even if he knew he wasn't.
But he still felt really exposed, standing in the middle of the street and facing down the Sorcerer (who was riding down the street on Julian as if he had been transformed into something like a horse instead of a spider) while wearing his McHoodie instead of the Ninja Suit.
Randy swallowed, his fingers clenching the Sorcerer's power ball even tighter as it fought to escape his grip. He had to do this.
The Sorcerer reined Julian to a halt a mere five feet shy of Randy, and he couldn't stop himself from flinching. Fighting the urge to run had been bad enough. This would be a whole lot different if he had actual weapons on him as opposed to something that was more likely to blow up in his face than anything else.
The Sorcerer surveyed him for a long moment. "You look familiar," he drawled. "Randall Cunningham. The Ninja."
"Randy," Randy corrected. His voice was a little raspier than he would've liked it to be, so he swallowed before continuing, "And all I'm trying to do is help the Ninja." That was Danny's cue to smoke bomb in. They'd agreed to that much, that he'd come in either when Randy mentioned the Ninja or the Sorcerer attacked, whichever happened first.
The Sorcerer smirked. "That's not what I hear." He raised a hand, green stank swirling above it.
Randy swallowed again and waited.
Nothing happened.
"It doesn't make any difference, of course. You're just one more ally of the Ninja's that I can crush."
"He'll stop you," Randy whispered defiantly. He hadn't meant to whisper it, really, but his voice didn't seem to want to speak with nearly as much volume as he wanted it to.
It was easier facing the Sorcerer when he was hiding behind the mask of the Ninja.
"Really." The Sorcerer sounded downright amused, something which made Randy's skin crawl. "I'm afraid I'll have to disillusion you."
Danny still didn't show.
Unfortunately, the Sorcerer didn't want to wait. The stank shot towards Randy, quick as a viper's strike, and green filled his vision.
