After three days, the mood at school was just as oppressive, even if the teachers tried to pretend it wasn't. It was a lot to take in—too much to take in. Sure, ghosts attacked all the time, but it was never so serious. No one ever died. But this was real, and in the blink of an eye the Baxter Hotel was reduced to a whole lot of nothing. No one was sure what to say to Dash and Star—they had stopped coming to school after the first day after the incident, probably because everyone had been walking on eggshells around them. As much as he detested Dash, he would have never wished something like this on him.

The news had called it a gas leak, a tragic accident, but Danny knew better. Conan had given them an idea of the oddity that was the Baxter Hotel explosion, but after that he'd kind of gone off into his own detective world to try to reason it out. Not that Danny claimed to understand the nuances of the entire situation with his extremely limited experience in underground criminal organizations, but even he could see where the math didn't quite add up.

His first thought was that Spectra might be involved. After all, Conan had said that she had blatantly exposed her ties to this mysterious organization. Maybe it was just because it was his kneejerk reaction to attribute anything weird to ghosts, but Spectra was a different kind of ghost. She was cunning, careful, ruthless. Danny had never met a ghost like her; most came screaming their intentions at whoever was terrified enough to stand still and listen. But her? She kept her cards close to her chest, and given what had happened at Casper High, she didn't care who she had to tear down to get to whatever she wanted. She had a finger in every pie and she was not afraid to use them all against whoever got in her way.

To be honest, it scared him a little. It was overwhelming, to suddenly be thrust into a whole other side of things that he hadn't known existed or he wouldn't have slept at night. He felt completely unprepared for everything that was coming his way, but what could he do but try to keep afloat among the tide?

Maybe he was just letting the whole business get to him. Still, his intuition kept nagging at him to say that she was definitely involved. In Amity Park, ghosts were always involved, whether the problem stemmed from them or not. Danny's best guess was just the odds being against them—after all, with his family's portal sitting in the middle of town and what must be thousands of years of ghosts waiting for their chance on the other side…it wasn't hard to see why it was such a problem.

A few minutes before the bell rang, as Mr. Lancer was finishing his lecture, Danny quietly tapped Conan on the shoulder, visibly snapping him out of whatever train of thought he had been following. "I can't help but think that Spectra is involved," he whispered. "Imagine the misery that an accident like this causes. And you said yourself that she's connected somehow to this organization. So…"

Conan bit his lip in thought. "I see your point, but I don't know. From the way you explained her powers to me, I gathered that she kind of trails behind the Organization and feeds on the misery caused by them without actually working with them to mutual benefit. Whether she's done anything or not, she definitely knows something. Still, even if she were involved in the explosion, why would she do it?" Conan held up a hand. "Like, okay, she uses misery to keep her young and all that, but what deeper motivation would she have to implicate Gin with the evidence left behind? If that were all, she would have just blown up half the building and been done with it."

"I would normally agree with you, but Spectra's a different kind of ghost than what I normally deal with. You say something's not right? I guarantee you that it has something to do with ghosts," Danny retaliated.

"We can consider the possibility, but in the meantime, I want to investigate more closely what it has to do with Gin's movements and plans for the future." Conan looked back down at his blank loose-leaf paper. Danny turned back around in his seat and inwardly scowled.

The bell rang for Lancer's class, and he gave out yet more detentions to people who he deemed were "slacking off," including Sam and Tucker. This surprisingly did not include Danny, but he was going to take his Lancer Luck while it lasted. He had other things to worry about.

Danny gritted his teeth just a little and tapped Conan on the shoulder again. "I don't think you're listening to me. Have you forgotten that Spectra knows that you have something to do with those people? She could sell you out."

"I know, okay? I know that she's dangerous, but we have not ascertained in what way. I'm just not sure that's really the most probable answer; she's connected to the Organization in some way, I don't deny that, but she's also a ghost. What reason could she possibly have to work with humans? Her interests shouldn't lie in that half of the world anymore," Conan reasoned as he twirled his pen around in his fingers.

Danny really hated arguing with Conan. "But you shouldn't dismiss it just like—" His sentence stopped short at the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe the bell has rung. Don't you boys have another class to get to? Or is the conspicuous whispering about your next hot date just so important that you couldn't possibly stop in the middle?" Danny jumped and looked up to see Mr. Lancer looming over them, his arms crossed, a dry expression pasted onto his face (though Danny was personally convinced that Mr. Lancer had been wearing the exact same expression since 1982).

"Sorry," Danny mumbled as he shoved his English book into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder. "Come on, Conan."

Conan still seemed elsewhere as he slid out of his chair and grabbed his bag, heading out the door with Danny. Mr. Lancer watched them go before shutting the door behind him and fishing his phone out of his pocket.

They didn't really say much to each other the rest of the day, but they still met up after their last class and tried to have a lighter conversation, like he would have with Sam and Tucker had they not had detention. It still struck Danny as a little odd, that Sam and Tucker had gotten detention for "slacking off" and not him. He was by far the one with the worst grades out of the three of them.

"Anna Karenina, where are those kids?" Lancer's voice carried above the crowd of students as he marched down the hallway. He raised his voice. "School's been over for twenty minutes! If any of you think you can just walk away from a detention, then I've got news for you!"

Some other straggler laughed as she shut her locker door. "Mr. Lancer, aren't you going to run out of books to yell dramatically one day?"

"The world of literature is vast. There will always be another work of merit to explore the elements of, whether it's a well-known work or not." Mr. Lancer sighed and turned back the way he'd come, presumably to go looking for whoever was skipping.

Danny looked over at Conan to ask if he was ready to leave, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the thinly veiled horror on his face. "Woah, what is it?"

Conan looked tense, like he was ready to for a fight at any minute. This did not reassure Danny. "What did she mean by 'running out of books?'"

"Oh, well, I'm sure you've noticed that Mr. Lancer likes to use books whenever he wants to exclaim something. He's never said the same one twice. I heard there's even a good-sized betting ring on whether he'll reuse a title or not." Danny rubbed the back of his neck anxiously. "Uh, why?"

Now Conan looked ill, and a cold feeling rushed through Danny's veins. "Never?"

"I've never heard him use repeats, anyway. But why do you want to know? Because you look sort of freaked out and it's freaking me out."

"Oh shit. He used Anna Karenina once before when I was alone with him." Conan grabbed Danny's shoulders with a tight grip and whispered,"Danny, has Mr. Lancer done anything else odd lately? Anything at all, even just one little tiny thing?"

Danny's mind raced, but nothing had seemed out of place to him. Mr. Lancer was always Mr. Lancer, with his book swears and his ridiculous attempts to be "hip" and his very dry, monotonous lectures. He really didn't like where this was going. "Well, I guess he's been giving out an awful lot of detentions or after school meetings lately." It was true that Mr. Lancer had always been a little free with detention slips, but it had been much worse lately, even before the Baxter Hotel explosion with everyone on a short temper.

"We have to go to Lancer's room, now. This reeks of a certain someone I know. Come on," Conan hissed, grabbing Danny's arm and leading him down the hallway as fast as they could go without running. "I think you may be right about Spectra selling me out after all."

"Are you seriously saying that that's not Mr. Lancer?" Danny's heart pounded as they made their way to Lancer's room. If one of the Organization members Conan had talked about had been right under his nose…he could hardly think about it, his mind going back to the icy eyes of the gray-haired man.

"May very well not be," Conan grunted. They stopped in front of the door and hesitated before Conan raised his arm and lightly knocked. "I really hope I'm wrong, but if not, I hope we're not too late to stop whatever she's doing."

"Come in," came Lancer's (or not?) voice.

"Uh, apparently there's a family emergency and Sam and Tucker have to go right now. It's very important. And urgent. It's…well, it's an emergency you see," Danny stuttered out, inwardly screaming at Sam and Tucker to get out of the room right now. Everyone in the room stared at him silently. "It's, uh, very urgent."

Sam and Tucker exchanged uneasy glances.

Raising an eyebrow, Mr. Lancer stuck a bookmark in his novel and set it down on his desk. "You mean to tell me that you, Mr. Foley's and Miss Manson's best friend, has come to tell me that sudden hardships have fallen upon both of their families at the same time while they're in detention? Forgive me if I'm skeptical," he drawled. Danny looked over at Conan for help, but Conan apparently was busy studying Mr. Lancer. Great, so he was going to be left on his own.

"It's about the Baxter Hotel thing," Danny blurted out. It was in poor taste, that much was true, but it was also something that nobody would argue with so soon after the incident.

"Oh, I see." As Mr. Lancer's frown deepened, Sam and Tucker scrambled to stuff their schoolwork into their backpacks and get out before anyone had the chance to object.

"What's this all about?" Sam demanded in a hushed tone as they half-jogged towards the exit.

Danny shrugged in her direction.

As soon as they were a reasonable distance away from the school, Conan spun around abruptly, bringing everyone else to a halt. "I am not sure that the Mr. Lancer sitting in Casper High right now is really Mr. Lancer. Aside from Gin, there's one other Organization member who managed to escape our grasp: Vermouth, a master of disguise."

"What, is she trying to spy on you?" asked Tucker. He was looking more and more uncomfortable by the second, which Danny understood. If this was really an impersonator, what had they said? Had they done anything that might give their plans or secrets away? How narrowly had they escaped danger every day without even knowing it?

"I don't know that it's even her. Why would she call a bunch of random detentions if she were after me?" Conan chewed his lip a little bit. "I really hope I'm wrong, but Mr. Lancer did two things out of place and I don't believe in coincidences. Especially not with how close the Organization has been lately."

"Well, let's confirm or deny it then," Sam cut in. Her lips twisted a hint upwards. "I've heard other teachers mention a big staff meeting tomorrow after school. Why not pay his lovely home a little visit in the meantime?"


It's sleuthin' time.

I know updates have slowed down a lot, and I'm sorry.