A/N: Based off a three sentence fic posted on my tumblr (ladylynse).

Heidi narrowed her eyes at Howard, but he was ignoring her.

Again.

Even though she'd been pestering him for ten minutes.

This was far from the first time she'd caught him in this situation, nonchalantly standing in front of a door as if that were a normal thing to do, but it had been more frequent recently. She just didn't get it, and she wanted answers. Seriously, what was up with him? It was super sus that he was anywhere without his best friend, meaning that Sandy was behind that door and that they were up to something.

Given that neither of them was anything resembling an overachiever, she highly doubted they were staying late at school for the purposes of their education. Especially when that purpose seemed to amount to Howard standing guard in front of the custodian's closet, eating chips and pretending he couldn't hear a word she said while Sandy did whatever he was doing inside.

She could not afford to be associated with them if they covered the school in cake batter again, because even if there had been an upside to that mess, it had still been a mess, and it had still needed to be cleaned up.

Maybe that was why Heidi got desperate enough to finally try straight up tackling her brother.

"What the cheese is Sandy wrapped up in that you're willing to go this far to cover for him?" Heidi huffed as she tried to wrestle her brother away. Howard gasped out something like none of your beeswax as he tried to grab her hands and overpower her before she twisted in his grip and went for a spot where she knew he was ticklish. As Howard yelped and pulled back from the door, she pushed ahead and burst through it—

—and, screaming and unable to backpedal even she abruptly realized it was very much not the custodian's closet it should be, fell through a portal as her momentum carried her forward.

She stumbled into none other than the Ninja, falling in a tangle of limbs and feeling grit beneath her fingers. In the moment it took for him to disentangle himself and for her to get her bearings and join him on her feet, two boys with eerily bright green eyes—one dressed as a cat, for crying out loud—had flanked her. A third boy—someone else she didn't recognize—stood directly in front of her now, frowning. "Aw, man." He glanced at the others and said flatly, "We can't just let her go with what she's seen. We'd all be busted."

Heidi was too busy trying to figure out what the cheese had just happened to decide if that was as much of a threat as it first sounded.

The door she'd come through was gone. A quick glance over her shoulder told her that there was a cave behind her, which made about as much sense as her being outside on a beach right now, still squinting against the sudden sunlight. Granted, that also made about as much sense as her travelling through a portal in the first place, especially one that had apparently vanished behind her. Seriously. A portal? What was up with that? Norrisville had a lot of weird stories associated with it, but portals were a new one to her.

"Our situation is not that dire," the cat boy on her right said, and Heidi blinked as she recognized a French accent. Were these people from all over the world?

"Yo, you think? Like she's not gonna blab about this if she just goes back?" The boy who'd first spoken looked to the Ninja. "Your call. You know her best."

How did he know that? She'd never seen him before! He shouldn't have seen her before!

Then again, portal. Maybe the Ninja had been the last person to arrive. Maybe her little brother hadn't been exaggerating when he'd insisted that he and Sandy were the Ninja's number one fans? Maybe the Ninja knew that? Or maybe Howard and Sandy really did know the Ninja's real identity?

Heidi wasn't sure her brother would sit on that information, though. Especially when he'd hyped up the whole school by claiming to know the Ninja's identity. Could Sandy have actually talked him out of telling if he'd tried?

…Come to that, where was Sandy? She couldn't see anyone here but the five of them.

The Ninja shifted on his feet. "I mean, I guess she's not Me-Casting this whole thing, but—"

"I don't know enough to be a problem!" Heidi interrupted when the Ninja didn't immediately give her a glowing review. Geez, if he really was friends with Howard, was she being badmouthed behind her back? If Howard was the reason the Ninja wasn't going to support her and keep that other kid from doing whatever the cheese he wanted to do—

"Portals aren't that unheard of," the boy on her left said. "I mean, it's not the first one Ra—er—" here he glanced at her "—the Ninja's encountered in Norrisville, even if they aren't nearly as common as they are in Am—uh, where I'm from."

"Really selling it, aren't you?" the first boy said dryly. "What if she saw the tech and recognized it?"

"I don't know if anyone would recognize anything after Spud got to it, even without Tuck's influence. I'm still surprised they got it to work for this."

"Okay, look," Heidi cut in again, desperate to make them understand, "I really don't know what you're talking about, so obviously I can't tell anyone about it, right? You can just let me go home and pretend this never happened."

"Yeeeeaaah," the Ninja said slowly, "one teensy little problem with that. You ignoring something like this? Not normal."

"I'm not going to tell anyone! I just said that. I'm no shoob, Ninja!" Heck, if they let her go right now, she wouldn't even yell at Howard. Much. A little warning would've been nice. He had to have known this was here. Whatever this was. Some secret meeting on some uncharted island paradise sort of deal? She could taste salt in the air, and it was definitely warmer than it had been back in Norrisville….

"He means he doesn't think you're just going to let it go," cat boy said quietly, "and Phantom already pointed you in the right direction to start digging."

"Oh, come on," the boy on her left complained. "I was being vague! Mostly."

"The Am Drag over here wasn't much better," added cat boy, and the first boy scowled.

"At least I can recognize the severity of the situation and have a solution to it that can't be linked to the Ninja. I just need to talk to Fu." He pulled a phone out of his pocket and turned away, and Heidi chewed her lip. Outright attacking him would be a bad idea. Aside from how it would look, she'd never be successful. Even if it took the Ninja a beat to realize what she was trying to do, he could still wrap her in his scarf before she could tackle the other boy—the Am Drag? That had to stand for something—and if all of these guys were with the Ninja, there had to be a reason for that.

Maybe she'd stumbled into a secret meeting of superheroes? Who just didn't know each other's identities? Except neither the Phantom kid nor the Am Drag were wearing masks, and Phantom had almost slipped up….

Cat boy sighed and turned back to her. "Apologies, milady. Your company was unexpected."

Milady? What century was he from? "I'm not here to spy on you or whatever you think," she said, trying to speak as plainly as possible so that they couldn't misconstrue her meaning. "I was just…." What could she say? Fighting with my brother would not endear them to her. Admitting that her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she'd wanted to find out what her brother and his best friend were up to wouldn't exactly help her case, either. "I went through a door, that's it. I swear. I didn't expect this to happen."

The Ninja snorted. "Like you regularly hit up the custodian's closet. I know Sundown hasn't given you a key."

Wait, did that mean the Ninja had a key to the custodian's closet? Did he have keys to every room in the school? Actually, that might make sense, given the number of attacks around the school. She'd always just assumed he got around with some kind of magic. Debbie was the one insisting until she was blue in the face that the Ninja wasn't some powerful entity who'd been around for 800 years and therefore wouldn't have need of mundane things like keys.

Heidi was never going to tell Debbie she'd been right.

Phantom, who was standing near enough to the Ninja to elbow him, did just that. The Ninja swiped back at him in turn, but….

Heidi blinked.

Had she just seen the Ninja's hand go right through Phantom's shoulder?

Cat boy coughed, and she looked back at him. "It's dangerous," he said, "if it gets out that the Ninja isn't always in Norrisville. We can't afford to have it known that he works with us—or, really, that any of us are working together."

Heidi frowned. "I don't get it." She could hear Phantom and the Ninja whispering to each other behind her, and she resisted the urge to turn and include them in the conversation. "Is the Ninja recruiting help for something? Are one of you recruiting help for something?"

Cat boy raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't want to know enough to be a problem."

Heidi winced. "I…don't, I guess, but…." This time, she couldn't stop herself from glancing over at the boy who was talking into the phone, presumably to this Fu, whoever that was. "I don't know if I wanna be dealt with, either, y'know? And if he gets his way and I am, I might as well know before the end, right?" A laugh bubbled up inside of her and escaped before she could force it down. Back home, she'd always been confident that the Ninja had her back, that he'd protect her from whatever was coming, monsters or robots or whatever else, but now that he might be against her….

"He's worried. It's hard to protect people, and we all know that sometimes it's necessary to keep a secret to be able to do that."

The including this one might as well have been floating in the air between them in giant block letters.

"I don't know enough to be a danger to any of you right now," she said again. "I don't even know your name, let alone where we are!"

"But you know we're not in Norrisville. You know, given that the Ninja is here, that he isn't always Norrisville, and because of how you got here and what was said, you know that he has the capacity to travel elsewhere instantaneously, even if the prototype he's using clearly needs to be improved upon so that no one else wanders through and follows him like you did." This last bit was said louder, and when Heidi turned, she saw Phantom sticking out his tongue, though it was back in his mouth the moment he realized she was watching.

These guys were definitely friends, not simply some superhero colleagues who trusted each other's judgement but that's about it. They reminded her too much of her own friends and classmates—and, truth be told, Howard and Sandy—to not be able to see it. The subtle and not-so-subtle teasing, the things they didn't say but seemed to understand, the way they asked for each other's opinion or input, the way they offered that input without fear of being judged for it, the attempts to protect each other—from her, however misguided that was….

Heidi swallowed. "Look, your friend, um, the Am Drag? What did he mean when he said you're all busted just because I'm here? You might as well tell me if he's convinced I already know."

"It's not only that you know, Heidi." That was the Ninja again; she hadn't realized he was still paying attention to the conversation. "I mean, you do know, important stuff, even if you don't realize you know it. But you were right before. It's that you're here in the first place. You might not scoop this story, but if you say anything about it, you could wonk our cheese and we'd be shoobed. I mean, the portal thing's new—we're trying to make it easier to meet up—but the fact that we are meeting up? That we're training together? That we'll be able to fight together if we need to? That could be bad if it gets out."

"Which is why you straight up told her we're training together?" Phantom murmured, loudly enough for her to hear, and the Ninja groaned.

"She would've figured that out. She's not stupid."

Phantom pulled a face. "Well, if Fu comes through, I can overshadow her if I have to."

Heidi didn't know what that meant, but she didn't need to know to immediately decide that she didn't like that. "Come on! I haven't seen anything. I swear! This is all just some crazy dream as far as I'm concerned."

"You'll have sand in your shoes."

What? Heidi turned to look at cat boy again, sure the question was written all over her face. Like, sure, now that she wriggled her toes in her shoes, she could tell that she'd gotten sand in there, but what did that have to do with anything?

Except she knew exactly why that mattered.

It was evidence.

"Under your nails, too," cat boy said, taking her hand and lifting it to show her and prove his point. "We'd have to clean you up before sending you back if we were going to pretend this didn't happen, and that'll never explain the lost time."

Oh, she really didn't like the sound of this.

"It's not gonna be hard to get all the sand off her," Phantom said. "Seriously, it'll take two seconds."

Cat boy shook his head. "She's been here longer than two seconds."

"Yeah, like two minutes."

Cat boy shot an exasperated look at Phantom. "We don't know if anyone was looking for her. We don't know if anyone saw her go through or noticed that she's not where she should be. Just because no one else can wander through the portal now—"

"Yeah," interrupted the Ninja, "Spud and Tuck are really gonna need to work on that, because getting home with one of you guys is gonna take longer. And clearly leaving a portal open isn't safe even if it's guarded."

Wait.

That meant Howard had been guarding the door! She wasn't nuts! "Why the cheese did you let Howard guard the door?" she blurted out. "I don't care if he and Sandy are your number one fans, Ninja, that just screams shoob move."

Phantom snorted, and cat boy was definitely hiding a smile. Sandy? Phantom mouthed at the Ninja, but the Ninja was studiously ignoring him now.

"Where is Sandy, anyway? If they were supposed to be together and one of them left to get snacks, it definitely would've been my brother."

"If you wanna just pull out the Nomicon instead of waiting for Fu," Phantom said, "I'll still hold her in place and just duck out right before you open it."

"No, she's got a point."

"What?" That was the Ninja, fixing cat boy with an incredulous stare. "Why does it matter if Howard would leave for snacks?"

Cat boy raised an eyebrow. "I don't mean Howard. Or your choice in portal guardian, though I wonder why you didn't just go home and use your bedroom closet or something." The Ninja raised a finger, maybe meaning to protest this point, but cat boy continued before he had the chance. "We've all been getting sloppy. Yours was just the first mistake to come back to bite us, but we all know someone who could be very dangerous to us if they found out even a whiff of this."

Phantom frowned. "Wait, what are you thinking?"

Heidi rather wanted to know that, too. It didn't sound like they thought the portal she'd come through was still open. To be fair, she hadn't, either, but maybe it was and it was just invisible? She'd barely had a glimpse of anything before coming through it in the first place, so she couldn't be sure. Maybe she should try to make a run for it anyway? If she could get back before they decided what to do with her, she could get away—

Except she couldn't.

The Ninja knew who she was. More than that, he was on very good terms with Howard, which meant he no doubt knew exactly where she lived. And Howard, being Howard, would be more than happy to point out her bedroom if these people decided they need to kidnap her in the middle of the night or do something equally wack to deal with her.

But that was crazy.

The Ninja was a hero.

Surely the rest of these guys were heroes, too.

Weren't they?

"We could do with someone else watching our backs," cat boy said quietly.

"What? Just because you aren't that worried because this is the least likely to come back on you, Mr. French Guy, doesn't mean I'm not worried."

"Doesn't mean mind wiping her is the best idea, either."

"What?" Heidi asked, the word out of her mouth before her brain had a chance to process what cat boy had said. Mind wiping? He couldn't be serious. That had to be joke.

Of course, from how they'd been talking….

"No no no, no, seriously, you do not need to do that," she said, stepping back as if that would do her any good. "I swear I won't breathe a word of this. It's fine! I'm chill."

Naturally, the first boy chose that moment to rejoin the conversation. "Fu can be here in ten."

Oh, great. That meant she had ten minutes of keeping her memory? How much would they take if they did a mind wipe on her? Was it just gonna scrub the last hour or something or would she lose—?

"I don't think we need him," cat boy said, prompting the Am Drag to raise an eyebrow and look pointedly in her direction. "I mean it. Let's give her a trial. She doesn't need to know who we really are in order to help out the Ninja when he needs it. It's not like we've told Howard everything yet."

"Actually…." The Ninja wilted as the others looked at him. "C'mon, he's just good at prying things out of me, okay?"

Heidi stared.

As far as she knew, Howard was only good at getting people to spill the beans if he knew them well. He liked to use little personal things against them, guilting them or bribing them or making bets or—

"Where's Sandy?" she asked again. She wanted an answer to put the thought that was beginning to form thoroughly out of her head, as it had to be nonsense and had no right to finish developing in the first place.

"My point is," cat boy said without even looking over at her, "give her a trial period. We can turn this to our advantage. You said she did a lot of Me-Casting, right? Isn't that something where she could have a lot of followers? It would be a lot easier for her to sway people than Howard if anyone ever gets suspicious."

They weren't paying attention to her. Because they didn't like the question she'd asked or because they didn't actually know who Sandy was? Except the Ninja must if he knew Howard as well as he seemed to.

Heidi took step back and then another. When they didn't stop her, she kept going, past the point where she'd passed through the portal—

Nothing.

No change.

It wasn't here.

She was stuck.

At their mercy.

She was so shoobed.

"How come you always have wonk ideas, but you can make them seem like they're actually pretty bruce?"

Cat boy smiled. "Because I'm right."

"Still your call, Ninja." That was the Am Drag again, and he was looking at her as if he'd never been fooled by her attempt to sneak away unnoticed.

The Ninja turned to Phantom, but he shrugged. "Not like we can't fix it if he's wrong," he said, tilting his head slightly in cat boy's direction. "I can even crash at your place for a bit if you're worried. The others'll cover for me for tomorrow, and then it's the weekend anyway. Shouldn't be that hard to monitor the situation and pop in for sneak check ups or something to make sure she doesn't just blab the moment I head home."

Even from where she stood, Heidi saw the Ninja roll his eyes.

"Fine." Those eyes flicked to her. "Yo, Heidi, if you keep this on the DL and cover for me when we've gotta meet up, we can do what you want and pretend this never happened. No talking to anyone about it. You got it?"

She swallowed. "Not even Howard and Sandy? You know Howard's gonna corner me after this, and he'll tell Sandy everything anyway." If he even needs to.

She tried to banish that thought. It was even more wonk than this whole situation.

"Fine. You can talk to them, but only if they say you're clear to talk at all. You have no idea how many listening ears there are in Norrisville. Anyway, I'll fill 'em in when we get back. Assuming you agree."

"If I agree, you're not going to wipe my memories of all this?"

"Not if we don't have to," the Am Drag said, looking like he still wanted to do exactly that.

"Yeah, okay. I agree."

"Swear it," Phantom said. "On, um…." He glanced at the Am Drag. "Anything binding here?"

"What, you assume every magical place has a binding oath associated with it since you found out more of the laws of the Ghost Zone?" The Am Drag shook his head. "She's just an ordinary human. The magic here won't hold her unless we can supplement it with a potion."

"I swear I won't tell anyone about any of this," Heidi said, not wanting to wait for them if it meant she could get home before they changed their minds, "except for you guys and Howard and Sandy if they say it's safe to talk. Plus, I'll cover for the Ninja if he asks. Happy?"

"If you break your oath—"

"I'm not going to break my oath!" Heid snapped, cutting off the Am Drag before he could add any more conditions. "Just let me go home, okay?"

She didn't want to ask about Sandy again.

She didn't want to be ignored again, not when she was thinking she knew why they might be avoiding the topic in the first place.

Really, it was the only thing she could think of that would make her brother change his tune about knowing the Ninja's true identity.

Heidi let out a shuddering breath. "Please?"

"I'll take you guys home," Phantom said, and he pulled out something small and metal from his pocket, though she couldn't make out what it was beyond that. "Maybe you can arrange a good time to talk to her after this has had a chance to sink in. Y'know. Just to make sure we aren't all busted." He shot a cheeky grin at the Am Drag, but Heidi's stomach just turned.

She might not know who the rest of them were, but the Ninja—

Heidi folded that thought away and refused to look at it.

"I should be going. I'll let you all know when I can get away again," cat boy promised. He, too, pulled something small from his pocket that glinted in the sunlight. "If you find a way of tweaking these in the meantime, let me know." He turned to offer Heidi a small smile and added, "It was nice to meet you. Thank you." Then, raising his arm and telling the others he'd see them later, he turned and strode off in the opposite direction of the cave, heading up along the beach towards a place where the heat was coming in waves off the sand to the point where it made her think he must be baking in that black suit, and then—

Then—

He was gone.

"We should go, too," Phantom said, and turned to point past the rocks near the cave entrance. "I'm up there."

"Let me know how this goes," the Am Drag said, in the tone of one who expected it to go horribly. "Fu and I will prepare. Just in case."

"It'll be fine," the Ninja said to him as he walked to her side. "C'mon, I'll help you."

This turned out to be a good thing, as clambering over the rocks was a bit more precarious than she'd like, but she almost lost her balance when the Ninja whispered, "I'm trusting you. Please don't blow this for me."

Heidi swallowed. "Why? You don't even know me." Maybe. Unless she was right, in which case he probably knew her better than she knew him. Well. Obviously, if she'd missed this entirely.

"Honestly? I'm shoobed either way, because Howard will definitely wonk my cheese when I get back, since he'll make this into my fault and not his. But if Chat Noir's right and you can help…." He trailed off. "I need the help. It's one of the reasons I'm working with these guys. There are some things that can't be done alone. And, well, 'a ninja must know when winning is losing and losing is winning.' I think this counts."

Heidi wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but she didn't have time to ask, because the Ninja was pulling her up towards Phantom and, she now realized, towards a shimmer that must be a portal.

She could ask her questions later, once they were alone.

Once she thought it over and decided whether or not she was right.

Until then, she could pretend everything was perfectly fine, even though it wasn't.

She was good at pretending.