All of the reviews are like, oh, no, poor Danny, let him recover, he's a baby, and here I am writing chapter 171, rubbing my hands together and whispering 'let the baby SUFFER,' like some kind of fanfiction gremlin. How do you stand me?

Also, I'm glad that you guys liked Mar and don't mind that I literally just slid my ghostsona into this story. (You can see my tumblr five-rivers [and also the general tumblr DP community at large, my blog is tiny {parentheses-ception!}] for more of that nonsense, and also art.)

Insomniac Dormouse: Yes, Danny will be the focus for a while, with little glimpses of what's happening elsewhere.

Richard1081: Yes, we will be periodically cutting back to stuff happening elsewhere.

Anne Camp: Ah, I think your spell-checker ate the first part of this one... I'm not sure what you're asking there... You'll have to wait and see for the trip, though. A lot of it is in this next chapter.

vampireharry: Thank you! I'm glad to see you're still reading.

Potkanka: Yep, that's the toll :). That's sort of part of the reason Cynosura cut off Danny's introduction, though Mar wouldn't know about Danny being the next king. The rest of it is that Danny is pretty famous in the Ghost Zone, they are in a hurry, and Danny's not well. For Danny's friends, you'll have to see~ :)

Guest: I'm not sure what you're asking here. They are both in the story. Maybe you can clarify?

Jatynzel: I'm glad to keep seeing you! :)

17: Yes, that does seem to keep happening, poor Danny :(

KKVixen: Thank you! I'm glad you liked the Tower. I was a bit worried when I was writing it that people might not like it.

Black Cat: You'll just have to read to find out! *evil laughter* But, more seriously, I'm picking up some plot threads I threw out there dozens of chapters ago. Like, literally half the story ago. That's what I'm doing. I'm really glad I found a good place to tie them up neatly. Oof.

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Chapter 157: Crowd Control

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Danny didn't mean to doze off. He really didn't. But the sling was dark, Iceclaw was soft, and Danny felt reasonably cool. Being tired beyond belief didn't hurt, either. Two hours of feverish sleep was not enough to offset the ordeal of the Digressed Tower, or even being shot in the face by Valerie. Gosh, that would have been exhausting on its own.

Sadly, this didn't stop his dreams from being chaotic and alarming. He woke in a panic, certain that he was back in the Tower, on a floor where everyone had aphasia and they were under attack by something big with teeth instead of eyes, and it had melted a hole right through him with a blowtorch, and he was dying-

And he was trapped-

"It's okay, it's okay," soothed Pandora, stroking his back through the cloth of the sling. "You're safe, Daniel. It's just a dream."

Danny's response was unintelligible, even to himself.

"Do you think we ought to try to take him out?" asked Pandora.

"I don't think that will help," said Iceclaw in a strained voice. He sounded hurt! Why did he sound hurt?

Belatedly, Danny realized he was the reason Iceclaw sounded pained. In his nightmare, he had latched onto Iceclaw's fur and pulled. He released the yeti's fur, and attempted to make himself very small and very light in apology.

His core protested vehemently at the latter. He squeaked.

"Sorry," he wheezed, a moment later, when he had regained control of his breathing. "Didn't mean to, um..."

"It's alright," said Iceclaw, sounding relieved. "We're almost to the Architect's Gate now, would you like to see?"

After a moment of (admittedly hazy) thought, curiosity won out over embarrassment. He poked his head out and froze. They were all staring at him. A split second later, all except for Pandora looked away and pretended that they hadn't just been doing that. This included a couple of ghosts that Danny didn't know, and who had clearly just been passing by when Danny had his freak-out.

"Are you feeling more rested, at least?" asked Pandora.

"Um," said Danny. "Maybe."

Pandora gave him an encouraging smile and ruffled his hair. She floated back and gestured behind her. "That's the Architect's Gate," she said.

Danny looked. On his own, he would not have called the structure a gate. It was certainly large. Its base was a big, twenty-sided shape. On each of the sides sat a small clouded glass building. Each building was set with a sturdy-looking door. The whole structure shone with viridian light, casting rays into the surrounding space. There was a small crowd of ghosts around the thing, some coming, some going. Every so often, a ghost would enter one of the buildings, and the light would swell, before momentarily dropping below its original level.

"Unlike with the Tutors' Door," said Pandora, "these are captured natural portals."

"Oh," said Danny. At another time, he might be asking how natural portals had been captured. As it was, the number of people down there looked... stressful. "It's pretty," he offered.

"It is," agreed Pandora. "It's alright if you would like to sleep some more."

Danny didn't want to sleep if he was going to have more fever dreams (nightmares), but he took this as implicit permission to hide again. Which he did.

He really didn't mean to fall asleep again...

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"He is going to be okay, right?" asked Ellie, as she watched Danny's breathing go soft and even. She had designs on sleep herself, and she was grateful that Pandora had elected to perch her on her shoulder.

Pandora could make herself very large.

"Yes," said Dr. Iceclaw, with confidence. "Once he gets treatment, he should be perfectly fine."

With that, the little party made its way towards the Architect's Gate.

"Are we going to wait for Enyeus and Meda before we go through?" asked Ellie, referring to the two who had been sent off for supplies.

"No," said Pandora. "They know the way. They will meet us in Mattingly."

Cynosura seemed to know exactly which of the little buildings they needed to go to, because she flew very confidently to the end of a rather long line. Ellie frowned at it, then looked up at the building. Was there some kind of marker..? She floated up, slightly. Ah, there was, over the doorframe, in Old High Spirit. Ellie wondered why that was the language used, when the structure was clearly more modern. Perhaps the builders had liked the script? It was pretty, but it could be hard to interpret, sometimes.

She squinted, even though she didn't really need to.

The words read, 'nyitaasikis evie.'

She didn't know the first word, but the second was 'market,' so the first had to be 'goblin,' or 'goblin's' or something like that. She settled back to the level of the line.

"So," she said, "how do we pay for this one?"

"It varies," answered Cynosura. "I don't know what it is today. Sometimes it's coins, sometimes it's energy, sometimes it's ice, or fire, or bits of random junk. Sometimes it's stories, or news from other Realms." She shrugged. "There was one time they wanted flowers."

"They?"

"The people who run it." She scowled, then. "Architect, singular, Tutors, plural, and for which one are there actually more people?" She shook her head. "I'll never understand that woman."

"There are more than one, though?" said Ellie.

"So she claims."

Ellie decided not to bring up the matter of Mar's coat... pet... friend? Whatever. It wasn't really important, anyway.

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"The ship isn't sinking," said Jazz, tiredly. "There's nothing for it to sink into."

"It could still fall," said Tucker.

"Not helpful," hissed Sam.

"They've still left us!" said Paulina.

"Not, like, on purpose, though," soothed Star. "I mean, he was pretty sick-looking at the end, there."

"I guess," said Paulina, somewhat mollified. She picked a splinter off the edge of her bunk.

The students (and Mr. Lancer) were in the hold Pandora and the captain had dedicated to the sleeping needs of the human group. They had been there for some time, first to sleep, then to hide from the construction details. Jazz, Sam, and Tucker had their own room, in theory, but, well. Staying here, with everyone else, they had decided, was the more diplomatic choice.

At least, that's how Jazz had reasoned through it. She wasn't sure if the other two followed the same logic.

"We were all sick looking," protested Elliot. "We're still sick looking. We look like- like refugees from a war zone, or something."

"That is kind of what we are," said Hannah, not unkindly. "I mean, I'm not sure if that counted as a war, but it was definitely a battle."

Several of the children shivered.

"I've been near ghost fights before," said Mikey, "but that was different."

"It was like when the town was invaded," suggested Star. "Sort of."

"Which time?" asked Mikey with just a touch of humor. "But no, it wasn't, not really. I mean, we could still get under shields..." He shrugged.

"Yeah," said Ricky, a bit over-loud. He'd been a touch too close to an explosion, Jazz gathered. "Even if you couldn't, it was usually only a couple of ghosts, and you could run on your own, but this- I don't know."

"Almost makes me want to take the Fenton's ghost safety classes," joked Mia. "Or that other thing they did- What was it? Ghostadors?"

"Ghostkateers," said Kwan.

"Oh! Right. You were in it, weren't you? What was that like?" asked Mia, momentarily distracted from current circumstances.

Kwan pouted. "I don't remember. I think I was overshadowed."

"Er," said Hannah. "You were overshadowed... while you were a member of a ghost-fighting group?" She shook her head. "And people wonder why I'm a conspiracy theorist."

"No offense Jazz, really," said Lester, so earnestly that Jazz had to believe him, "but your parents aren't very good at their job."

"I know," said Jazz.

"That's a good thing," added Sam. "Well. Sometimes, anyway. It usually keeps Danny from getting shot by them."

Paulina issued something like a strangled laugh. "Not this last time, though?"

Everyone winced.

"Anyway," said Jazz, deciding to at least try to get a grip on the direction of the conversation, "it isn't as if we've been abandoned. We're on our way back to Elysium, and we're surrounded by soldiers who are going to do their very best to get us there intact. I mean," she had to raise her voice slightly to be heard over the bangs of construction elsewhere in the ship, "that was the plan to begin with, when we came to get you. Just- Danny needed help, so we had to split up. That's all."

"I sort of got the impression they were mostly here for Danny," said Nathan. "I get it, it's just... That's my impression. No one here really likes us."

"They don't really know you," said Tucker, reasonably. "They can't dislike you, anyway."

"Knowing you would probably be a minus, really," mumbled Sam.

Jazz elbowed her gently. "I guess it is true they mostly came for Danny, but it was for all of you, too. You see, you were guests in Elysium, so they feel like what happened was their fault. It's a Greek thing," she added. "Xenia, but with a ghostly twist."

Mikey, Nathan, Lester, and Mia looked enlightened. The rest did not, but didn't ask any questions. Instead, their eyes swiveled to Valerie.

Valerie, like Sam, Jazz, and Tucker, had done some fighting in the battle, and now, well... Jazz was reasonably certain she wasn't asleep, she'd dealt with her brother's sleeping habits (or lack thereof) and late-night escapades too often to be deceived by an amateur, but Valerie wasn't quite an amateur, and she was doing a credible impression of sleep. She'd probably even fooled most of her classmates.

Speaking of sleep... Jazz let her eyes drift to Mr. Lancer, who was passed out on one of the bunks, and drooling. He'd spent much more time awake and worrying after getting aboard than his students had. Than most of his students had. Jazz had been up for just as long, she thought, but then she hadn't been dragged more than halfway up that Tower, and she wasn't nearly as old.

"You know," said Sam, snapping Jazz from her reverie, "there's not any point in getting angry at anyone here because of this. Spectra's an expert in mind control."

Jazz opened her mouth to deny this, because what Spectra did wasn't, technically speaking, mind control, but stopped as she spotted what Sam had seen. Resentment. Not well-disguised resentment, either. She should go to sleep herself, if she was missing things like that. Apparently, now that they had made it to safety, and had a little time to think about things other than survival, or what new way their history and personality were being pulled into, they had the mental energy to be properly annoyed at Valerie.

(And Jazz was supposed to be the psychologist. What else was she missing?)

Jazz had just the bare bones of what had happened with Valerie, Spectra, and Danny. It was enough. She was more than a little aggrieved with Valerie herself, but this wasn't the time or place to air that grievance. She wasn't sure what the proper time and place would be.

(And she had a suspicion that Valerie hadn't been the only one Spectra had suckered that night)

It didn't matter.

The mind-control ruse seemed to be working, a lot of the tension bled off, some of it even transformed into a kind of reserved sympathy.

"So," said Ricky, "we're just going to wait? Do nothing?"

Jazz suddenly realized, far too late to do anything substantial about it, how problematic that would be. Twenty students (assuming one counted her, Sam, and Tucker), one teacher, bored, scared, traumatized, and more than a little angry, trapped on a slow ship taking them back to a place they had already been taken from forcibly once, without any familiar protection. The Elysians would stop anything physical from happening- or at least keep anything physical from escalating- but purely verbal disputes? Subtle bullying? Shunning?

She doubted it. They might not even notice it was happening, or if they did, they'd think nothing of it.

"No," said Jazz. "We're going to see if we can figure out who sent all those mercenaries."

"How?" demanded Star. "It isn't as if they just told us who- Wait." Her brows went down, scrunching up her face. "They did, didn't they? Crap. What was the name?"

"Issitoq," supplied Mikey.

"Ah," said Jazz, surprised to be finished with that line of inquiry already. "I- um- I don't suppose they said why, did they?"

Star shook her head.

"Do you know?" asked Hannah.

She wasn't looking at Jazz, but past her, to Sam. Sam's face was... stormy, Jazz decided. That was the way to put it. Tucker's looked like it had been carved from stone. Why were-?

"They called him an eyeball, I think," said Paulina, "and some other things... The person who hired them, I mean, not Danny."

Oh. Ohh.

Jazz wasn't the best with names (the others still hadn't let her live down 'Ghost X' or 'Crate Creep'), but once they were in the proper context...

"Did they mention anything about him being a judge?"

"Maybe?" offered Paulina. "Why? What's wrong now?"

Jazz's eyes roamed over the cabin. "Nothing immediate," manged Jazz.

"I'm going to kill that racist, hypocritical, foul, little pustule," stated Sam, voice utterly calm.

"Sam," said Jazz, somewhat alarmed. "You can't. I mean, it isn't that I don't want him gone- I've wanted him gone for a while, now- but he has an army and he can see the future. I'm not even sure that he's killable. Destroyable?"

"Hey," said Hannah, raising a hand, "does anyone want to tell us who this 'Issitoq' is?"

Jazz sighed. "Do you all remember when Danny told you about the Ghost Zone's legal system?"