"As soon as I saw the ghost, I ran. I didn't see anything, but Allison swears that she saw some martial arts expert in a cape and mask appear out of nowhere just as it grabbed someone! She couldn't see much because of the crowd but…"
"Jazz, all I'm getting is that your friend must be a hardcore comic book fan who's slightly touched in the head," Danny said in desperation at breakfast the next morning. His sister used to try to forget nothing harder than her parents' fixation with ghosts. Lately, she couldn't seem to talk about them enough with Danny. At least twice a day, she recalled the latest sightings at school that day, speculated on what the ghost of that day was and where they came from, hounded Danny about what he'd seen, too, and always ended with some speech about how she was starting to change her mind and found ghosts "fascinating, but not necessarily frightening. I mean, I know I freaked out that one time the new school therapist turned out to be a demonic spirit, but I don't have anything against ghosts in general."
"Well, kudos," Danny snapped. He backed up from the table and picked up his backpack. "I'm outta here. See you later… much later."
"Wait!" Jazz jumped up and ran for her purse on the counter. "I'm not in a hurry this morning. I could drive you!"
"No, you can't!" Danny called back quickly. "I'm… meeting Tucker on his street, first!"
"You guys never walk together," Jazz said as she came to the door. "You always meet at school."
"Not today!" Danny ran for his life before she stopped him again. Jazz had not only turned overly-communicative recently but into an overprotective body guard. What is her deal these days? What if?… … Nah.
Once a safe distance was between him and the house, he slowed down and walked, thinking about yesterday's strange battle, not only about the masked stranger who had appeared and vanished just as strangely but about what he couldn't discuss with Tucker and Sam. His run-in with the vultures had been ridiculously pointless, but occurred at exactly the same time another one of Vlad's ghosts showed up. "It had to have been a distraction. But from what?" What was even more suspicious was that Valerie had run with everyone else when Skulker appeared; maybe she just hadn't been interested since she hadn't seen Danny Phantom there. He surprised himself that he was hardly concerned about her, aside from keeping his secret safe; he spent eight hours a day, five days a week, around her, after all, and she was only getting closer to him now that she and Tucker were dating. "But she doesn't know who I am, and she doesn't really know who she's after. This is all connected, and Plasmius is the only one behind all of it." Why did every ghost choose Amity Park to start theri take-over-the-world campaign or stir up as much mischief as possible? There was only one connection. The alarm went off: he shivered as his blood ran colder and colder and his breath came out in icy blue clouds.
"Oh, great! I better not be late for school again." In a rush to get whatever battle was ahead of him over with, Danny took the shortest glances around himself, saw the coast was clear, and transformed into his black-and-white ghost mode. As he was rising into the air, scanning for disturbances, his ghost sense faded as swiftly as it came. "Huh? That's never happened before." He circled above the ground for a few seconds, still on guard. He didn't sense the ghost again, but he heard some movement in the trees lining the sidewalk, far down the street. He turned invisible and flew over. The noises stopped just as he got close, and he still wasn't sensing a ghost. "Great," Danny groaned as he landed and turned human again. "A false alarm. I didn't even know I had false alarms."
His complaints were abruptly stopped when something came hurtling toward him from behind like a baseball. He ducked at the sound, but he needn't have bothered; the small, round, silver projectile landed about five feet to his right. "What the…"
"Who are you? What is the meaning of this?" Skulker demanded of the masked, fully-armored stranger who had just snuck up on him and forced him away from his quarry.
"I've been watching you watching this ghost-boy for the past twenty-four hours," Slade answered in his standard slow and soft monotone. "From the first time I saw him, I felt this situation warranted further study. Now, I find my observations to be very interesting." He paused for emphasis. "Very interesting."
"What do you know about…"
Slade continued as if the ghost hunter hadn't said a word. "You've tracked him to his school, all around town, and to his home. My radar has shown surveillance expertly concealed almost everywhere." Slade turned and nonchalantly began pacing around the trees hiding the two from view. "The only spy I've ever met who was so thorough was… me."
"It seems there has been some mistake. I…"
Slade continued. "I don't make mistakes. I know exactly what is going on. All I need from you is information."
"I don't have time for this. I have my orders…"
"Trust me, I've givenyour young friendsomething to hold his attention for awhile. I may have a business proposition for someone, if they want the same thing I want. Just tell me: Who do you work for?"
"Very average, very harmless, very unoriginal CD… or a DVD, I guess."
"Still a very weird and very unorthodox way to send a message." These were Sam's and Tucker's comments as they sat with Danny in the school's computer lab during break, passing around the disk that Danny had picked up that morning.
"What did you expect in the 21st century?" Tucker added next. "A message in a bottle?"
"I tried running it this morning before class," said Danny. "I highly doubt anybody wanted someone to see this, or they wouldn't have encrypted it."
"So, why are we trying to un-encrypt something not meant for our eyes?" asked Sam, as Tucker inserted the disk.
"Because I know I sensed a ghost this morning that must've just left right away," explained Danny. "And because the only reason someone tries to hide something is because they've got something to hide."
"They didn't try hard enough," said Tucker, who had been typing and mouse-clicking and reprogramming via his connected PDA for the past five minutes. The techno genius's efforts had, apparently, paid off. A message and progress bar appeared announcing "UPLOAD IN PROGRESS- 15". "Find a file I can't hack into, and miracles do happen."
"Note to self," said Sam. "Never keep digital diary."
"You have a diary?" said the boys together.
"What?"
"Hey, we got something," said Danny, turning back to the computer.
"We got a video," said Tucker. "I'd say homemade, recorded via webcam…"
"Or an action movie with a high budget for stunt doubles, low budget for cameramen," said Sam. The scene the three were watching took place in nearly total darkness, but they could make out two people locked in fierce, evenly-matched, hand-to-hand combat. The camera was high above the action and stationary; the combatants often moved out of the frame. One was tall and either very muscular or dressed in a thick, solid suit. The other was shorter and either faster or panicking and wore a long cape.
"Hey," said Danny, pointing him out, "He look familiar to you?"
"He does now," said Tucker as the scene abruptly switched to new footage, recorded closer and at eye level, of another battle, indoors. (Actually, the walls looked more like the inside of a circuit board). Pairs of opponents appeared to be clashing in all corners, but the person who quickly caught their eye was…
"Robin?" said Sam, curiously.
"I knew I recognized those moves," concluded Danny.
"Hmm…" Tucker typed a little here, clicked a little there. "Check this out."
"Looks like the menu," said Danny.
"Everything on this disk is candid camera footage?" asked Sam as Tucker began playing various recordings in turn.
"Correction," added Danny. "Candid camera footage of Robin." It was unmistakably the same boy, in the same costume, riding a ferris wheel watching fireworks with a red-haired girl, practicing some kicks in a gym, but mostly fighting for his life against a monster made of stone, of dark purple gooze, or a blonde girl with a chilling, murderous look in her eye.
"Ah-hah!" Tucker said, unexpectedly, freezing the current image.
"What?" asked Danny.
"Check this out," the computer genius answered as he zoomed in on a battle taking place on the roof of a building in a busy city at night.
"Who are they?" Danny wondered as he watched the four different attackers ganging up on the movie star.
"And what are you doing?" asked Sam.
"Look. There's a sign on top of that building."
" 'WAYNE'," said Sam. "So?"
"So, a quick visit to Google, cross-reference with addresses," Tucker explained, all the time typing away, "and we now know that we are looking at the Wayne Enterprises building of Jump City. And since all these exterior shots take place in the same city…" he continued as he displayed them all on the screen.
"I get it," said Danny. "That must be where he's from."
"So what is he doing here?" questioned Sam.
"He did say he was running away," Danny wondered aloud as the trio walked home after school.
"He didn't say that," Sam reminded him. "You said that, and then he said you could say that."
"Close enough," said Tucker.
"Well, we still don't know why," Sam replied.
"Now we know he's a superhero," said Danny. "Who's been in a lot of action. Maybe he made one too many enemies. Maybe his life was in danger."
"You're saying what?" Tucker put in. "Somebody has a hit out on him?"
"Somebody definitely wants to know everything they can about him."
"He said he was leaving town. What're you gonna do?" Sam pessimistically pointed out.
"Maybe I don't have to do anything," Danny said, speaking up as the sound of an approaching motorcycle grew louder and louder. "But he did help us out. I mean, what if he needs help?"
"Careful, Danny," Sam said, with a smile and the air of a joke in her voice. "Remember what happened to Harry Potter when he started thinking like that."
"What did you say?" Tucker screamed over the now deafening noise.
"I said," Sam screamed even louder, "Remember what happened to Harry Potter when…"
"What?" the boys yelled, together. The engine noises continued to grow painfully louder. Everyone on the streets, including the teens, were holding their ears and groaning in annoyance.
"Okay, I'm no expert, but who else doesn't think this is normal!" Tucker screamed into the din.
"It must just be a really powerful bike!" Sam struggled to make herself heard.
"It's ridiculous!" screamed Tucker.
"It's Robin!" Danny exclaimed as he looked up. "What the…"
Robin was speeding down the street on a red motorbike unlike any they'd ever seen before and appeared to be trying to shake off two giant ghost serpents that were chasing him and trying over and over again to cut him off. He tried occasionally throwing a sharp red weapon or firing a laser from the front of his motorcycle, but, of course, they went right through the ghosts.
"Now that's weird," said Sam as Danny transformed, perfectly safe since all eyes were on the barraged rider.
"Be back in a flash," Danny said as he took flight. "But just in case, stand by to make my alibis, please!"
"Yes, sir!" Tucker yelled back in jest, as Danny flew off in pursuit.
"Why are these things after me?" Robin wondered to himself as he made a speedy, sharp 180 degree turn in another attempt to lose his pursuers. This was the third time he'd been sneak-attacked today. The first few ghosts he'd been able to take down, or at least send flying away in fear, but more kept coming. He had hoped the R-Cycle would give him an advantage this time. "How can you fight something you can't touch?" he said in exasperation as another bird-a-rang passed right through his temporarily intangible target. "I, if anyone, should know the answer to that."
Robin sped up as much as the bike could take, but the flying serpents kept coming. "This trick will only work once. Better make it count." He hit the brake as hard as he could, maybe even harder, and the ghosts sped on, not noticing that he had stopped. "Now where… Darn it!" Before he could find a turn to make, the ghosts were heading his way again.
"Yo, Vigilante! Need a hand?"
Robin turned around to see hovering above him the same ghost from the schoolyard yesterday. As he turned back to the serpents, he hit the gas, and moved to the right, out of the line of fire. "You said it, not me."
Danny hit one snake with an energy blast before they even got close, but the second one managed to dodge it and turn in mid-air to knock him into the ground. He took a second to regain himself before turning intangible and phasing down and out. Both ghosts followed him. They returned, visible, on far opposing sides of Robin like they'd taken opposite directions. Danny reappeared behind the one in front of Robin.
"Tag," Danny exclaimed as he hit the serpent with the beam from the Fenton Thermos. "You're it!"
"Impressive," Robin said as the ghost vanished in a bright blue tornado.
"Behind you!" Robin backflipped up clear of his bike, losing his helmet in the process, in just enough for the last charging serpent to miss him. It knocked Danny out of the air, all but stunning him, and dragged him back up, higher, wrapped in its coils, dropping him before he had time to react. Robin took advantage of its lack of attention on him to finally hit it with a freeze disk. One explosion, and the agent slowly took effect until the ghost fell to the ground in a block of ice.
Robin ran over to Danny. "You okay?"
"I've been hit harder." But that wasn't the problem. His head was pounding, various limbs were throbbing with pain, and the threat was gone. As Danny subconsciously let go of his urgency, his adrenaline flow shut off, and he powered down in mid-sentence.
Danny gasped in alarm. "Oh, no!"
Robin leapt back in astonishment. "Oh, my gosh!"