~Vlad POV~

"Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. Jazz won a special trip to Loguetown." 'Mr. Lancer' spoke to the parents of Jasmine Fenton over the phone. "She's going to help a special case get over his brother's death."

"Oh, will she be safe?" Maddie Fenton asked in a worried voice.

"I assure you she's fine. She should be back in a couple of weeks."

"Strange she didn't tell me about it..."

"She must have wanted it to be a surprise."

"But Jazz-"

"I'm sorry Mrs. Fenton, I have a student waiting for me. You'll see her soon."

Vlad hung up the phone, lacing his fingers together and placing his chin on them. Plasmius had overshadowed Mr. Lancer to clean up the mess that McFist and Viceroy made. It wasn't his idea to kidnap the sister of Daniel, and it sure as hell wasn't in his or the Sorcerer's plans. Vlad exited from the teacher's body, phasing through the wall and into a bathroom stall, changing to his human form.

He flushed the toilet and walked out of the restroom, giving a good glare to all the students in the hall. Of course, Vlad smiled as well, but it was obvious that the man was upset. Masters could only hope that the Huntsman had succeeded in his next mission. Out of the group of minions, Huntsman was far more capable than McFist and Viceroy. Even if the scientist was smart, he basically did whatever McFist said, dubbing him as useless. Especially after the kidnapping of Jasmine Fenton. There was no reason for that!

Vlad took a deep breath to calm himself down. As one of the co-mayors it was his job to keep a positive face in public. Maybe he'd just bake some confectionaries from the left over ingredients. His cat, Maddie, seemed to love his cooking. Maybe it would make the supervillain happier.

~Jake's POV~

Jake's heart raced as Danny impatiently tapped his fingers against the table, obviously contemplating the information they just recieved at super speed; working through all of the possible scenarios.

Randy shot a question from his corner chair position once more. "Can you repeat that?"

Gramps sighed. "Huntsman captured 10 pixies."

Jake took a deep breath and leaned forward a bit. "But Gramps... weren't you and Fu the ones guarding the pixies' village?"

"Yes..." Lao nodded solemnly. "He caught us off guard."

"You? Off guard?" Jake raised an eyebrow, his cool demeanor failing a bit as a small tremble was evident in his hands. He brought his hands forward, interlacing the fingers in an attempt to keep the tremble from being obvious. "I-" Jake took a deep breath. "I don't believe you."

Gramps just shut his eyes, sighing in defeat and turning to leave the back room of his shop; a single glance to the trio was all they got.

A moment passed in the now silent room before Danny burst into action, pacing the area in quick, sharp movements. His voice was nearly finished healing, so talking had been an activity the ghost boy had been participating all morning. At this moment though he seemed overly concerned.

"Danny, I'm sure it's fine..." Jake gulped, speaking the words to help himself more than his friends.

"HOW CAN IT BE-" Danny whipped around and coughed, shaking his head and taking deep breaths. "How can it be fine?" The second time he spoke it was far softer. The teen returned to his pacing shortly after the outburst.

The room fell silent once more, the previous day's frolic in the lake forgotten and unimportant. Jake placed his forehead on his hands, his eyes slammed shut as he tried to think of a way to get out of this scenario. It was bad enough that Huntsman succeeded in getting the unicorn horns, but now with the pixies... Plus the fact that Gramps and Fu Dog were unable to protect the village... It was all too much for him to take.

Jake opened his mouth, only to be cut off by Danny. The dragon's vision snapped open and locked onto the halfa.

"I'm going to go think about this." Danny changed into his ghost form, his green eyes clearly clouded with thoughts, worries, possibilities, and stress.

"Okay, but Danny-" Randy reached forward, stopping as Danny flew through the wall. "... Don't think too much about it..." The ninja faded off his sentence at the dissapearance.

A moment passed.

"This is so... WONK!" On the last word Randy slammed his non-slinged arm onto the table, his anger and disappointment clear. He jerked his hand from the table, equally as quickly standing. "I'm going to go-" He took a breath and got rid of his angered voice. "...play games with Howard." The usual joy that came with this sentence was replaced by a bitter tone.

Jake could do nothing as his teammates- his friends- his allies exited the room one by one. Silence filled the room once more after Randy slammed the door behind him. Jake grit his teeth again, attempting to keep his hands from trembling in anger and fear.

"Yo, Jakey...?" Trixie carefully opened up the door to the room.

"Not now Trix." Jake shot to his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets as he pushed past his best friends and out of the store. He had to cool off. He couldn't harbor all of these emotions- Jake was supposed to be the fun-loving guy who encourages the others to follow and trust each other. Despite what he said to Sam yesterday, he couldn't help but feel responsible- as if he was the leader of the trio. Jake knew that Randy and Danny also felt the same way he did. None of them had established a 'leader' persay, but rather, they were all leaders. The dragon shook his head, grabbing his skateboard on his way out. Jake would return to normal. But first he had to let off some steam.

~Jazz POV~

Jasmine remained deathly quiet- pretending to have fainted from the sudden experience of being kidnapped. Somehow the teen had managed to fool the two adults, surprising herself with her abilities a bit. She wasn't the best actress around. Unfortunately, Jazz wasn't entirely certain who her assailants were, but she had suspicions that it was McFist. She had watched enough news to recognize the voice of the multi-billionaire owner of a monopoly. But she also wasn't certain because she knew that people sounded different in person than on TV.

"Are we there yet?" Voice 1 -McFist according to Jazz- whinned. Jazz held back a flinch at the movement he was causing to the vehicle, the whole car swaying under his weight.

"Not yet." An exasperated Voice 2 responded (she wasn't exactly sure who this was quite yet, hence her hesitation about McFist).

She heard a harumph, then silence for about a minute.

"Are we there yet?"

She could practically hear the eyeroll, "Yes."

"Really!"

Jazz's body jerked to the side, her eyes slamming shut as she bit into her lip to prevent herself from complaining about her sure-to-be bruise from the impact.

Fury was evident, "You lied to me!"

Voice 2 sighed. Jazz leaned forward as the car began to stop. "No I didn't."

McFist paused for a moment, Jazz frowning at the, albeit slower, shift of balance in the car. "Oh, you're right." McFist's voice was flatlined.

"Mmm. Of course I'm right."

The mechanical click signified to Jazz that there was some kind of security system- one that required a key to unlock it. She shimmied her tied hands slowly to her pockets, silently sighing in relief at the confirmation of the fenton phone in her pocket. Thankfully her capturers had yet to check her belongings. She brought her hands back to her lap as she felt the vehicle slow down and the sound of a garage door opening. She thought nothing of it for a moment, but after said moment her brows furrowed. What garage door could take that long to open?

A click sounded and the vehicle began to move again, the almost-silent mechanical whurr of the garage now registering for Jazz's ears. It had to be a lair of some kind. No normal person would have such a garage. Nor such a silent garage door opener. Seriously- only people who washed their car every other day cared enough to keep their garage from squeaking.

Instinctively Jazz slammed her eyes shut at the sound of the back door being clicked open. Even with the bag over her head she didn't know if they could see her face or not... Saying the crazy things that her parents had invented, Jazz wouldn't be surprised if a one-way-mirror-bag-thing existed. The teen resisted the urge to respond to the sound of robots walking up to the car- maybe in curiosity, maybe by orders, she wasn't sure.

"Take her to the... Uh, what was it called?" The second half was noticeably quieter than the first half.

"The Hol-"

"TO THE HOLDING CELL!"

She again assumed that it was McFist who shouted the line, but the novelty of finding out her captor didn't make jazz feel any better knowing that she was going to be held somewhere unknown. Possibly for days, hours, minutes, years, or however long they wanted to keep her. She huffed as she was picked up by the ape, being carried bridal style into the unknown.


Exciting, huh? :D

Okay, so one last thing before I depart with y'all. I'm considering making a spin-off series where it's literally just the trio hanging out. I realized that there isn't much of team bonding in this fanfic because they just have to get along and get over it due to their enemies, but I do want to show that the trio are friends. So, how many of you would be interested in reading something like that? I was also thinking maybe I'd put some one-shot ideas for AU's and other fanfics for these shows that I likely won't write and/or take a while before getting to them.

Also, I have an idea for what to do for the sequel of this story! I know, I know. You're saying: "But... You haven't finished this one yet!"

And yeah, I get that. However, having a sequel would be fun to contemplate. The rest of this story is planned out (about 11 chapters left guys!) and I'm having so much fun with these three I don't want to part with them... Does that make any sense? Well, regardless... I wish you all a fantastical day and wonderful surprises!

I donno when I'll update next, but I'll try to do better than 5 months [winks]. I already have an idea for the specifics of the next chapter, so yeah! Maybe y'all'll get a third chapter this month! Who knows~

(btw if u can guess what Loguetown is from i'll give you a cookie... Hint: it's an anime that I've sunk way too many hours into but still adore)