The following day found Toby being awarded with a medal of honour for his supposed reveal and capture of the trio of thieves the night before. Jim had refused to put himself forward on the grounds that he hadn't really done much aside from chase the thieves and in Dan's case, no one could reasonably confirm that he'd actually been in the sewers to begin with. As far as the cops were aware, it was Scott who had called in his own attack and it was Toby who had driven the thieves out to them. Not that Toby was against the medal, on no! In fact, he appeared to be rather enjoying the attention as he stood center stage, next to Councilwoman Nuñez and Detective Scott.
"…It gives me great pride to day the criminals have been caught" Councilwoman Nuñez beamed as cameras flashed in her face like fireflies. Dan was glad that he had chosen to linger at the back of the pack, fingering at the straps of his school bag in the wee hours before school started for the day. "All thanks to Detective Scott, with the help of brave young Toby Domzalski! Both are heroes!"
"Toby!" Darcy beamed as she leapt on to the stage admist the cheers of the crowd and easily took her father's place before planting her lips on his and kissed him. "You're amazing! You did it!"
"Darcy!" Detective Scott scolded from the sidelines, although he was ignored in favour of the red-cheeked boy. "That's enough"
"Aw! Young love!" Cooed Nana Domzalski as she honked her nose into her worn and embroidered handkerchief. "How sweet!"
Eyeing up the trio he'd found in the sewers the night before, Dan recalled the quote unquote conversation in which the trolls and their hunter had more or less interrogated Dan about his life and times as 'Danny Phantom' ghostly hero extraordinaire. In the end, he had warily quashed the onslaught of questions by promising to answer them later when all three were together under the pretence of only having to do it once. The real answer? He was just procrastinating; especially when he remembered the likelihood of follow-up questions from the Tarrons. Oh joy.
Later that morning, Dan shuffled through the school courtyard as he hunched over the hot chocolate tucked into his grubby little hands. A tower of whipped cream tickled at his nose with each sip and the already melting chocolate fish swam within the liquid, making it even chocolatier than before. Not to mention the sweet islands of melted marshmallow that formed when the chocolate on the fish fell away. A well-earned treat in Dan's opinion.
It was only when the sound of reggae echoed across the plane that he dared to look up from his happy little moment and when he did, his expression fell into a deadpan as he spotted the two very extra terrestrials that he was trying to avoid. "Why're you bothering with that thing?" Aja gestured to the large weathered boombox that sat wedged on Krel's shoulder. Both Tarrons had returned to wearing their human disguises and Dan couldn't help but wonder how they did that. Some kind of glamour, maybe?
"It's pretty cool, right?" Krel grinned.
"Sure, back in the 80s!" A passerby sassed, not that it mattered; the insult seemed to fly right over his head.
"Girl! You rule!" Shannon gushed as she passed. Dan had to bite his lip in order to hide a snicker at the blonde's obvious confusion. See, unbeknownst to the Tarrons, their little taco truck beat down had gone viral—likely in part to Mary's influence—turning Aja from 'new girl' into 'badass'.
"I turned down being Queen, actually" Aja replied in confusion, but Shannon was long gone.
"Aja!" Mary waved the pair of siblings over. "I posted your epic Steve take down on my FaceSpace and it went super viral! Now the whole school is like, obsessed with you!"
"Because…I hurt someone?"
"Uh, not just someone" Darcy replied as the Tarrons shared a look. "Steve Palchuck—not that we condone violence, though"
"I would've done the same if I had my serator" Krel defended.
"Ugh! Nice boombox, Kevin!" Mary sighed exasperatedly.
"My name is Krel"
"You should stick with Darcy and me" Mary looped her arms with Aja and easily began to drag the starstruck girl away. "I'm kinda the Queen Bee around here, you'll be a princess"
"Technically, I was Spring Fling Queen—" Darcy interjected.
"No, no, no" Aja pulled her arm from Mary's and stormed off. "I don't want to be a princess on any planet"
"Wait—ugh!" Mary protested.
"Not wanting to be cool is soo cool!" Shannon gushed, ever the fangirl.
Thankfully, Dan was able to use this distraction to slip into the school building and make his way to homeroom to sign in with their teacher before heading off to Study Hall. See, unlike most seniors who used their morning study lessons to sleep in or goof off, Dan liked to use them for more practical things like cleaning his dishes in the cafeteria or taking a shower in the locker rooms or even completing whatever homework he'd left to the last minute again. 'Cause living in Amity was great, but there was only so much of one space you could take before you went nuts and besides, who would waste a perfectly good shower when it was right there?
Absently swatting at some bug that was out of his reach, Dan made his way to the library at the back of the school. The room in question was one of the few that lay beyond the typical cluster of buildings, instead settling closer to the gymnasium which suited him (and the other bookworms) just fine. But it also meant that they had to travel past the 'Educational No-Fly Zone' known simply as the Staff Room. Which in a regular school would've been fine, but this was Arcadia Oaks and 'normal' for them, was still pretty weird. Most days the teachers just acted like they were in a sitcom that revolved around that small little ivory room.
Today's 'episode' appeared to include Coach going nuts over the microwave. Again. "…45 seconds and…start" Coach sang under his breath as he punched in the right numbers to heat up his breakfast burrito. Coach was another one of the featured eaters on Stuart's Walls of Fame & Shame.
DING! ZZZT!
"Wha—?" Coach leant down to inspect the buzzing microwave as several other students gathered around the doorway to the staff room to watch the scene play out. Coach was pretty well known for his poor handyman and technology skills and they couldn't wait to see how this one played out.
KABOOM!
Snickers and muffled snorts floated from the doorway as the gathered students gleefully watched Coach hurriedly duck out of the way of the microwave door which flew from the box with a ding & hit the opposing wall in a burst of sparks. Not that that seemed to put Coach off, if anything, he was far more concerned with whether or not his burrito had cooked before the item had broken beyond repair. No one spoke (save for one girl who squeaked before slamming her hands over her mouth) as they waited in anticipation for Coach to bite into the burrito, and deliver the ending to the improvised comedy he had unknowingly created.
"Ooh! Ha-ha-ha-hot!" Coach played hot potato with the burrito for a second or two before he finally ended their torture and bit into the wrap. Dan gleefully bit his lip as he waited for Coach to deliver the punchline they were all waiting for. It was undeniable that the bald man was funny, not in a comedic kinda way, but more like a constant Dad jokes and unintended innuendos kinda way. "Pfft! Ah! Still cold in the middle! Hey—! Nothing to see here! Get to class!"
Dan scattered alongside the other laughing students as the last bell rang and they made their towards their respective classrooms, each baring a grin and mirthful eyes. Moving on from the staff room, Dan trudged down the hallways until he came to the library and slipped inside without much fuss, save for the jiggling of the sticky door. The school's library was pretty typical for what you would expect; stacks of (text)books separated by the fiction, non-fiction divide with a smattering of long tables laid about the place, plus one very ancient and wrinkly librarian who sneered at you over her beaded spectacles. It was here, in the corner of the room, that Dan claimed a table for himself and set to work completing the homework he really should have finished earlier with headphones jammed in his ears.
Had Dan been paying attention he would've noticed the vengeful glares the librarian had been sending him throughout the last hour as he crunched his way through a bag of chips and his pencil ran back & forth across the page with each note that he jotted down. But alas, he was far more preoccupied with the music in his ears and the papers before him. There sat two ledgers before him; the smaller stained one on the right was dedicated to his typical human things like school, eating, van maintenance and Cujo. The other lined workbook to the left (a spare from some long-forgotten class) held all things ghoulish. In particular, there lay a map which folded out from the front and labelled places such as the natural Ghost Portals he'd discovered in blue, any GIW sightings were crossed out in red and certain hotspots (like Troll Market) were highlighted in yellow. Just general book-keeping, really.
With his homework discarded in favour of the two ledgers, Dan still didn't register when the few people around him fled from the room with neon bugs hot on their heels. Honestly, it was a miracle that he heard Señor Uhl's announcement at all, muffled though it was. "Attention students and faculty!"
"Hmm?" Dan hummed, barely glancing up from the stupor he had fallen into when whittling away the hour.
"Due to unexpected circumstances, classes are—are CANCEL—!"
"School's cancelled? That's weird, it's barely begun. Wonder why?" He mused, finally tearing his gaze away from the papers before him as he glanced up to find himself alone in the library and surrounded by pools of miscellaneous blue goo and neon bugs that looked like obese beetles. No sooner had he caught the gaze of the closest one did the lights cut out, casting the room into an ominous darkness that was pierced only by the glow of the strange bugs and his own ghostly green eyes. "…Hi. Nice beetle-bug-thing"
Moving ever-so-slowly as if any sudden movement would send the creatures all aflutter, Dan reached for the Fenton Thermos which lay nestled in his bag at his feet. With the sudden upkeep of soul collecting going on in Arcadia, the halfa had taken to carrying the device around with him at all times, just like he had done when he was a superhero. In the end, however, his cautious movements seemed all for nought as the creatures were far more interested in the various pieces of technology scattered about the room. Of course, being the library, technology was few and far between save for the odd computer.
The bugs were odd—even in Dan's repertoire of odd—particularly as they didn't carry the same aura as most dead things tended to. There were no cold spots (except for his own) nor did they carry a (fresh) stench of death. On the other hand, he could sense some kind of core within them and appeared to be made entirely out of ectoplasm, as evident when they burst into little puddles of blue goo. Perhaps Vlad Masters had been experimenting again? It was certainly within his wheelhouse.
"Right, anyway" Dan shook himself of his musings and proceeded to unscrew the Thermos in order to lock them away. In retrospect, they acted much like a moth to a flame for when he cocked the Thermos and began the arduous project, they swarmed him en mass. Watching the scene play out, it was like something out of a sci-fi film as the bugs abandoned whatever had previously occupied their attention and instead flown straight towards the equally beaming device in his hands, intent on devouring it as they had with the rest of the technology, only to be sucked inside.
No sooner had he screwed the lid shut on the last of the bugs and turn to shove his (stained) things back into his bag, did Dan find himself confronted by the very pair of siblings that he had been trying to avoid. His brows furrowed in confusion as he took in their goo-covered state and the rumbling boombox in Krel's hands which appeared to be playing some kind of old rock metal song. "Daniel?" Krel cocked his head in question, eyes raking over his own odd appearance. Dan wrinkled his nose at the use of his full name; people only ever did that when he was in trouble.
"…Tarrons" Dan returned the greeting, if a little hesitantly as he shouldered his bag. "What's up?"
"How did you get rid of the skeltegs?"
"Skeltegs—?"
"—Ooh! This is lively!" Aja clapped her hands excitedly, as she cut through both parties' curious queries. "Now you can explain about last night and Vex can get off of our backs!"
"I do not think that this is a good idea, Aja!" Krel turned on his sister. "It's bad enough that the Eli is suspicious!"
"Oh, nonsense! It's perfect!"
"Then you get to explain to Vex—"
"—You worry too much, little brother—"
"—And you don't worry enough, sister!"
"Um…" Dan blinked dumbly at the pair.
"Come along!" The blonde surged forward to grab the elder boy by the wrist and proceeded to drag him out of the library as Krel sourly followed them. Stumbling over his feet, Dan followed after the fast-moving girl and felt himself wondering if it was worth it to escape or just ride this whole thing out. "We must return to Mother!"
"Mother?" It was just question after question with these two.
Mother—as in Mothership—turned out to be the name of their AI home. With the facade of a retro home straight out of the 60s, and enough extra-terrestrial tech to set any conspiracy nut or geek's head spinning, he could barely keep himself from pressing himself up against the window to stare inside at all the things hidden in there. Dan stood at the edges of the backyard and watched as the Tarron siblings launched the blaring boombox straight for the bulging monstrosity which currently sat in the pool.…and was that a vacuum cleaner on top?
A goo-covered Stuart lay sprawled on the ground at, who Dan could only assume was Vex's feet. Although much like his charged, his grandfatherly appearance was shorn in favour of a much larger and much bluer one. "…Is that my boombox?" Stuart pushed himself up onto his elbows, mindless of the red welts covering his face. The item in question sizzled and sparked upon contact with the periwinkle balloon in the pool and Dan found himself backing away as it swelled greatly and rose into the air. "It's so beautiful!"
"Nope!" Dan refused with a shake of his head as he yanked open the back door behind him and slipped inside just as the giant ballon exploded, blanketing his boss and the Tarrons with the same blue goo from before.
"Unknown core detected" Intoned a disembodied feminine voice that echoed about the room.
"Jesus!" Dan exclaimed as he spun on his heel at the sudden announcement. He thought he'd been alone in the house, but the second voice proved otherwise.
"I am Mother"
"Er…nice to meet you? I'm Dan" He replied as he tried to calm his widely beating heart and searched for the source of the voice, delving deeper into the home like the Nosy Nancy he'd never admit to being. He dumped his bag on the kitchen counter as he went, a few items spilling out in the process.
Although the space was in a bit of a disarray from the earlier skirmish involving the same neon bugs (as evident by the puddles of goo decorating the place), the place was more or less like something out of their history books. There was some kind of 60s aesthetic here, and they were leaning full-tilt into it.
"You contain a core" Mother intoned as Dan tried to shake off the goo he'd stepped in before giving up entirely, and just turning intangible so that it would just fall to the floor.
"Uh, yeah" Dan hummed, quietly geeking out over the rapid regeneration of alien tech around him as power returned to the Mothership. "All ghosts do"
"You also contain a heart"
"I'm a, uh, special case"
"Not compatible. All living organisms are either dead or alive, there is no in between. Your heart still beats, therefore you cannot be considered a ghost"
"You should tell the government that" He snorted derisively at the notion as if it was comical. "According to them, anything containing ectoplasm is considered dangerous and should be killed on sight."
"There are no known references to this information in my database"
"Yeah, you'll wanna remedy that. Uh, the Ectoplasm Amendment Bill & anything involving Amity Park in 2004 should tell you what need to know—"
"—Now to deal with the little fleshling!" Vex decreed cheerfully upon entering the home, making Dan spin around once more this time to find himself faced not with a disembodied AI, but the houses' occupants and his boss. The blue man wasted no time in striding across the room and shoving the halfa into the wall, trapping him there with disproportionally large hands. Dan, who had not been expecting such an action, struggled furiously like a fish out of water even as Vex shouted accusations and questions at him over the protests of the others.
"Fleshling, you will tell us why you were spying on Varvatos' charges or Varvatos will feed you your toes!" He decreed.
"This feels familiar" Stuart commented off to the side, head tilted as he watched the scene play out. Pinned and face smushed to the wall as he was, Dan could barely reply as it was or maybe that was the idea. But in his experience, being pinned or strapped down never ended well for him.
As if on command, his body dropped several degrees in temperature (thanks to his cryokinetic abilities) just far enough for his captor to loosen his hold far enough that Dan could pull up a leg and kick him away. "GLORIOUS!" Vex cheered as he soared across the room, the kick having far more power behind than anyone was expecting. Dan suspected that the adrenaline may have been the cause of that. Honestly, Mother was just lucky that the back door had been left open otherwise there would have been a Vex-shaped whole in the glass.
"That was a bit much, don'tcha think?" Stuart mused, far too used to the boy's odd antics. Something that could not be seen for the Tarrons.
"Him or me?" Dan replied quietly as he pulled his shirt back down and focused on reassembling himself in a vain attempt to avoid any further confrontation with the family as Aja went to help pull Vex out of the pool.
"What is this?" Krel's tone was tinged with curiosity and pulled Dan from this, and over towards the kitchen counter where the latino was fiddling with the Fenton Thermos which had rolled from his bag. "Some kind of containment unit?"
"WHOA! NOT IN HERE!" Dan's eyes bulged and he suddenly surged forward to snatch the device from the startled boy who had been trying to pry the lid off. "Not—not in here"
"Apologies" Krel muttered like a petulant child, a little put out as Dan resealed the lid and shoved it back into his bag alongside the other things which had fallen out. "What is that thing?"
"Not a toy" Dan replied as he shifted on his feet and eyed the exit.
"I am not a child!"
"Could've fooled me"
"I can handle it!"
"No, you certainly cannot"
"Why not just let the prince have a look, Dan?" Stuart piped up, having watched the conversation like it was a tennis match.
"Sure, why not?" Dan sassed. "And while I'm at it, why don't I open up a portal in the middle of the living room to throw you all into? How does any early death sound?"
"…You can do that?" Aja warily queried as she returned to the living room with a rather wet Vex trailing behind her like a blueberry and made her way over to her brother.
"Wha—? No…" Dan heaved a sigh. "No, I can't"
"There's no need to sound so disappointed!"
"Look, can you just ask your questions so I can go? I just wanna take a nap"
"What are your intentions with Varvatos' charges?" Vex reiterated, moving to return to his earlier stance only to be stopped by a glare from Aja.
"Like I said last night, I thought you were with the GIW"
"GIW?" Aja puzzled.
"Guys in White—creative, I know—they're ghost hunters—contract killers"
"Which I still don't get, by the way" Stuart turned to him in confusion. "You can't kill something that's already dead"
"Well…" Dan trailed off.
"You can die?"
"It's not so much a second death as it is fading"
"What's the difference?"
"Less blood? I dunno, I haven't really known anyone whose faded recently. It's not really that common"
"That still does not answer the question" Krel stated.
"To be honest, I didn't even know you existed 'til you rocked into town"
"Oh"
"Can I go now?" He spared a look towards the Tarrons & their guardian who seemed to be conversing in silent gestures. It didn't take long for Aja to nod her assent as a sigh escaped from her brother's lips, and Vex pouted like a child who had been told he could no longer play.
"Don't forget your shift on Monday!" Stuart called after him as he turned to leave.
"Don't forget to pay me!" He called back, thankful that that was over. All that was left was the Trollhunter crew. One down, one to go.