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Chapter 111:

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Wes Weston's hunched over his computer, his face illuminated only by the blue glow of his screen. His fingers flew feverishly over the keyboard. His website had exploded practically overnight. The reason wasn't hard to deduce. The disappearance of twenty-one children, including Wes' cousin, Hannah, and three adults from the high school gym following a ghost attack was kind of a big thing.

Even so, some of his followers still thought that the ghosts were a hoax, or that his website was some kind of joke or fiction experiment, though. That annoyed him almost as much as the people who didn't realize that Phantom and Fenton were the same person. Almost. At least the non-believers paid. They thought that they were supporting a 'struggling artist.' Whatever.

Well, his website had, over the past couple of days, transformed from a conspiracy theory blog to a GIW hate blog. That probably confused people outside of Amity Park. Whatever. He didn't care anymore. They had to be stopped. Amity Park was essentially under military law at this point. You couldn't set a foot past your door without the white plague descending on you and waving 'certified accurate ghost detection rods' in your face. Or worse.

At least the Fentons' inventions usually worked, allowing for the fact that many of them targeted their son who was a ghost. Infuriating.

At least Fenton's freakishness meant that Hannah was probably fine, so he felt no guilt about focusing on ridding the town of the GIW. Because, Fenton aside, Wes Weston was a capable individual who totally could defeat an entire government agency.

(Maybe if he thought it hard enough he'd believe it.)

"Wes!" shouted his mother from downstairs. "Wes!" she repeated, more sharply. "They're here!"

Wes swore through his teeth. It was later than he had thought. "I'm coming!" he said pushing up from his chair, knocking it over in the process. He then proceeded to trip over his own feet and almost fell down the attic stairs. On the upside, he managed not to murder his cat, Inky. That wouldn't have been a great first impression, but it wasn't like there was anyone down there who didn't already know him.

If there had been, he would have dressed up a bit more, worn something other than sweatpants and a somewhat tattered school sweater.

The living room was stuffed with people. Wet people, which was only to be expected, considering how hard it was raining outside. They were dripping on the floor. The fact that his mother wasn't throwing a fit about the water was a sign that she was almost as invested as he was.

"Hey," he said. "So, I know we're all pretty upset about things, so let's skip that part, and go straight to what we're going to do about it."

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It wasn't difficult for a cat like Inky to cross from Harmony to Amity. She did it all the time. Harmony was in the lair of the protector of Amity. There was a connection. Besides, even normal, big, clumsy humans could probably get from anywhere in Amity to the Ghost Zone within a couple hours. Inky was a small, clever, ghost cat. She could go where ever she pleased.

Today she pleased to spy on the Westons and their secret meeting. She approved entirely. Those white-coated men had to be taken care of. She and the other animals of Amity Park had hoped that the disappearance of so many of them over such an extended time, facilitated by said animals, would drive them away, but it was not to be. There was nothing else for it. They would have to die.

Unfortunately, Inky couldn't complete such an undertaking on her own. She was only one cat, after all. She would need the rest of Amity behind her.

But she could make a start by bringing news of the Westons to the Council of Cats.

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Smith watched the children enter the tower, then swept his considerable supernatural senses backwards. As expected, Issitoq was watching. Smith's lips thinned ever-so-slightly in disapproval. The Council of Ancients had made their decision. Issitoq should leave it alone, should respect it. This sort of behavior was unseemly in the extreme, not something that a Judge should be engaged in.

That boy would be king. Or, at least, prince. He was far too young to go through the Rite of Ascension. In any case, Smith didn't care what the child's title ultimately was. Smith had one role in this. One that he was going to fulfill, regardless of how petulant Issitoq acted. Smith was a ghost after all. He had his prerogatives.

Well. The child- the children, Smith corrected himself- had gotten to the Tower safely, and he could not forswear his involvement in that, though it had been sheerest coincidence that he had stumbled on them at all. He wasn't heartless, after all. He wasn't just going to let Issitoq murder them.

But now that he was at the Tower, he had to get down to business. With a final glance of disgust at Issitoq, he followed the children inside.

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It was a moment of terrible displacement, crossing the threshold of the Digressed Tower, much like tumbling through the great green expanses of the Realms, committed to a direction not of one's own choice. He felt like he had lost something. Phantom did not like the sensation at all. He liked even less that he was being held by what he perceived as a total stranger.

Although, considering the effects of the Digressed Tower, it was unlikely that this person actually was a stranger. It was more likely that this was an acquaintance or ally. Still, the dissonance between what he remembered, and what he was currently experiencing was enough to make him roll out of the person's grasp, and bounce to his feet brandishing an accusing finger.

"Who are-?" The finger descended somewhat when he saw the face, or, rather, faces, staring back at him. "You-" They looked oddly familiar. One of them looked disturbingly familiar. Then there was that jerk Plasmius. But, more pressingly at the moment. "You're human."

"Yeah," said one of them, a pretty girl with long, but tangled, hair. She had what Phantom tentatively placed as a Spanish accent. "So are you."

"What the hell are wearing, Fenton?" asked the large, blonde human who had been holding him.

Phantom opened his mouth to say that wasn't his name, but thought better of it. If they all thought that was his name, then it probably was. In their continuity. It was close enough, anyway. He looked down at his clothes. They were what he remembered wearing, a nice blue tunic and knee-length over robe with pants that ended mid-calf, but that didn't really mean anything under these circumstances. Of course he would be the only person to suffer such a large change on the left-right floor, on top of all his other weirdness. This was probably the result of something he had done years ago, before he could even remember.

Instead, he stepped back, putting the majority of his weight onto his good foot, his ankle hadn't quite recovered from being tweaked, and folded his arms. He had to suppress a wince, then. He had somehow managed to momentarily forget that he had been shot in the shoulder. And chest. And a number of other places. Those white people had been awful, even above and beyond the part where they had tried to destroy the Realms. They had even attacked his lair, yelling something about liberating his 'human slaves.' They had even managed to hurt Mayor Trent! Just awful. Mayor Trent was one of his favorite adults. Then again, all of the Harmonians were his favorites. All of his friends were his favorites.

But then... Maybe that hadn't happened, after all. He should ask these people what had happened, although there was no real guarantee that they would know, either. They might even think that they had come into the tower for a completely different reason. Which, again, they might have. He didn't know any of these people. Except for Plasmius. Sort of. Except he probably did, if they were traveling together, and they knew his face, even if they knew it by a different leg.

"Danny," said the girl who looked uncomfortably like him, "your leg..."

"What about it?" said Phantom, looking down, momentarily distracted.

"You had hurt it before," she said, hesitantly. "Is this what you meant when you said that some people could be seriously changed?"

"I can't say," said Phantom. "I do not remember having that conversation." A man (Was that Smith?! No, not the time.) came through the door, and floated up and over them. "We are blocking the door. We should move." He looked back over his shoulder, into the room. They were being watched with amusement by a dozen or so ghosts in party hats. Phantom grimaced. He wasn't particularly enamored of this kind of attention. "Here," he said, spotting an empty alcove. "We can introduce ourselves to one another here. I particularly want to know what series of circumstances has put the two of us to a common purpose, Plasmius."

"You mean to say," said the older, overweight man, "that you don't remember any of us."

"Essentially," said Phantom, "with the exception of Plasmius, yes."