Asilrettor: I know, right? Even I haven't done that, and I wrote this thing! Props to all speed readers!

Potkanka: Thank you so much for your review! I tried really hard for the 'ordered chaos' thing and I'm very glad it came through. I'm not sure how many of your questions are rhetorical, but most of them should be answered in the story, eventually, and, believe it or not, some of them gave me some ideas for how to resolve plot points I was having trouble with. Thank you!

Anne Camp: I'm really glad that came through! I was sort of worried that she'd come off as callous or careless or something.

Insomniac Dormouse: It is somewhat less impressive when you realize I had a five-chapter buffer for Mortified at the beginning of the month, and that I'm burning that buffer now.

.

.

.

Chapter 132:

.

After they got halfway across the room, Danny, thankfully, stopped struggling. He hadn't been hurting her, had been avoiding that scrupulously, but he had been annoying and difficult. And whiny. Ellie couldn't forget whiny.

But she was beginning to understand why the architects of the Tower were so fascinated by the different facets of a person's behavior, by all the different ways you could look at the same soul. She would have thought that Danny would have fought differently. As in, he would have done more than just squirm. He certainly could have started to try to actually fight, actually do damage to Ellie. But he hadn't, and on this floor with no inhibitions, that either meant that his Obsession vetoed the idea, or that it had never occurred to him in the first place.

Which was interesting.

Not, like, hugely surprising, but interesting.

Danny went limp across her back. "I'm sad," he said.

"Okay?" asked Ellie. "Why?"

"I wanna go home. I don't like this." He sniffed loudly. "I'm tired."

"I mean, that's reasonable?" said Ellie, trying to sound supportive.

"I don't wanna be scared or hurt anymore. I wanna sleep, an' I wanna eat ice cream. Ice cream for everyone."

"Are you crying?" This was asked a bit incredulously. Ellie always saw Danny as a... sort of... strong, not-crying person. That was irrational, of course, she had seen him cry before, and on more than one occasion.

"Yeah. I don't want them to get hurt, Ellie, and I can't get them out of danger at all. We just keep- We keep getting into danger, more and more and more and I can't do it. I can't help." He hiccuped. "It doesn't really matter if I'm there or not, does it? Because I can't do anything."

Heck. Ellie didn't know what to say to that. "H-Hey, Danny, it's going to be okay. You know that, right? They're going to be fine. And it's okay to need help. And like, there are tons of things you can do, just not right now. Because you're more than just, you know, physical. But this is a physical sorta situation." Wow, that was a bunch of stuff. Verbal diarrhea. The lack of inhibitions seemed to spread to speech, too.

"I know. It doesn't change how I feel," he said, miserably. "I'm so tired."

"We can rest once we get to the next floor."

.

.

.

Valerie was livid. There that absolute- That massive- That- That- That lying two-faced jerk half-ghost monster was- having used her, he was- and he was just- He was there, and that was more than Valerie could stand at the moment. He had used her. He had manipulated her. He had tried to get her to kill Danielle. Or, well. Not kill her, but deliver her to be killed, which was just as bad.

If not worse.

And now, and now, he had the nerve to stand (float?) there shouting about 'his children?' Who was he kidding? Da- Fenton and Ellie had hightailed it out of there ages (minutes) ago.

God, she was furious. She was furious, and she wasn't going to put up with it anymore. She'd dealt with him for hours. She'd let him lead her and everyone else around, but she just wasn't going to deal with it anymore.

(She was furious with Da- with Fenton, too, of course, but he wasn't around.)

(She wasn't sure if what she had learned on the other floors was even true.)

(It couldn't be, true.)

(Phantom?)

Unfortunately for her anger, throwing beanbags wasn't proving to be very effective. Not only were the beanbags fairly light, the floaty jerkface kept dodging. She hated him so much. What she wouldn't give to get her suit working again... What she wouldn't give for just one of her guns...

She ran out of beanbags. Well, she didn't really run out. There were plenty of other beanbags around, they were just out of her immediate reach, and this floor was total crap, she had enough trouble with impulse control and overreacting.

Speaking of impulse control...

She raised a finger to point at the floating monster. "I'm going to hur-" A blast of magenta erupted from her finger and, predictably, missed Plasmius by a meter. The ghost didn't even notice. He was looking in the wrong direction.

Valerie froze, staring.

"What the f-?"

.

.

.

"We have superpowers!" shouted Mikey.

"Superpowers!" his friends shouted back.

.

.

.

Kwan lifted Star up onto his shoulders.

"I'm taller than all of you now!" said Star, happily. "I can touch the ceiling." She paused for a moment. "We're smarter than all of you people, too!"

"That's right!" said Kwan. "Dash wouldn't be able to scrape Cs without me, and people think I'm the dumb one!"

"Screw them!" yelled Star. "Valerie's my friend!"

.

.

.

Paulina wasn't listening. She had passed out on a beanbag.

.

.

.

"Argh!" said Dale.

"Oof!" said Dash.

They kept fighting.

.

.

.

"Hey," said Sarah.

"Hey," said Mia.

"I think we should kiss."

"Yeah, that sounds nice."

.

.

.

Elliot was trying to talk to Hannah. Hannah was having none of it, and was wondering if Elliot was secretly an alien from Planet Annoyotron.

She wasn't being quiet about her wondering, either. It was easily the ninth theory she'd had about Elliot. Today.

He just made it so easy.

.

.

.

Rebecca and Tiffanie were frantically looking for the stairs. They just wanted to go home and get out of this nightmare. Of course, they weren't looking together. They had run off in opposite directions.

.

.

.

Ashley was hiding with Mr Lancer. Mr Lancer was just ranting about how he was a teacher, and not a green beret, with lots of book titles mixed in. That is to say, he wasn't helping her nerves any. She was considering biting him. She'd been a biter when she'd been in kindergarten. She didn't remember much about kindergarten, but biting always shut teachers up. At least for a little while.

.

.

.

"What will the next floor do?" asked Danny, resignation clear in his voice. The wisps brushed heavily through his hair and skin. He hadn't figured out how to talk to them about personal space

"Nothing to us," said Ellie, as she flew up the stairs. "We don't have jobs."

"Huh?"

"It changes what your job is."

Danny frowned into Ellie's back. "We sort of have jobs, though. Roles we play. Things we do."

"We don't get paid for them," Ellie pointed out. "What we do, well, what you do, is more like, you know, a hobby."

"Stupid risky hobby."

"Some people skydive," offered Ellie. She fumbled at the door's handle, trying to get a grip on it while maintaining her hold on Danny. "That's dangerous, when you can't fly. I heard about some skiers dying, too. Or was it snowboarders?"

"Why do people do dangerous things, anyway?" said Danny. "It would be easier if people were sensible." He sighed, deeply. Cujo yipped in concern.

"Traveling can be dangerous, too," said Ellie. "You know I get jumped a lot."

"Yeah," said Danny. "Probably more often than you tell me, too."

"It makes me happy. Traveling. I guess skydiving makes some people happy. It's probably the closest they can get to flying on their own."

"I know," said Danny. "I get it."

"So why did you say you didn't?"

"I didn't say that."

"Yes you did."

"No, I said it would be easier if people made sense. That's different."

"Not really."

"I'm just complaining, anyway," said Danny. "I just wanted to complain. I think I'm allowed to do that. Not all the time, because that would be annoying, but, I mean, once in a while."

Ellie finally got a good hold on the handle, and depressed the lever. She had to step back, down onto the previous step, because the door swung in, towards the stairs.

"Gosh, I hate this place," said Ellie, drawing her legs up to avoid hitting Cujo.

"Me too," said Danny. He couldn't actually see what she was referring to from his perspective, but he knew Ellie, and assumed that she had a good reason. Besides, he was beginning to hate the Tower just based on his own experiences.

"The doors are so stupid," continued Ellie.

"In my defense," said Prunella, reclined in a padded chair in front of the door, "I didn't have any input in their design."