Since the last author's note wasn't clear enough, please stop leaving comments about or asking for explicit content. Even if you're just asking where to find it. It makes me uncomfortable, especially when it's about characters who are minors.

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Chapter 287: Easter Egg Hunt

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Dmitri would maintain his larger form for however long it took to get through his introduction to the president. It was only hard. Not impossible.

"President Klein, this is my younger brother, Prince Dmitri."

Dmitri wondered, distantly, what the decision-making process was behind his title. After all, Danny was also a prince, but his rank was far above Dmitri's. Was Jazz a princess? Had they made that decision? She was human, and he felt like that might complicate things. He didn't know. Maybe he should have tried to learn. Ancients knew he'd spent long enough being bored in the hospital.

"It's wonderful to finally meet you," said the president, "although it's my understanding that you were here before."

"Sojourn is my guardian," said Dmitri, which was the proscribed response to questions and statements regarding his not-quite-sanctioned presence in the United States.

"Yes, I had heard that from your sister," said the president. "Although I confess to still being somewhat confused." He gestured to the table. They were having a small lunch together. There wouldn't be anything decided here. The purpose of it was to rebuild relations. Dmitri hadn't thought that what had happened would have broken them down all that much but then, what did he know? Nothing.

"About what?" asked Sojourn, saving Dmitri from having to respond to that.

"How guardianship works in the Ghost Zone," said the president.

"It is exceedingly simple," said Sojourn. "We simply chose for that to be our relationship."

"Yes, yes," said the president, sitting down, "you said that before, and its good to know the cultural view of things, but the legalities escape me."

"There generally are no legalities beyond that," said Sojourn, "unless, of course, something has gone wrong."

"That sounds rather open to exploitation," said the president.

"There are flaws," agreed Sojourn easily. "But there are few large issues."

"The agreement regarding Showenhower stated that a person named Clockwork was Prince Phantom's parent."

"The term they prefer to use is grandparent, but, yes, that is correct."

"How does that work?" asked the president.

"Well, it is a little more complicated than my and Dmitri's situation, but at the root of the matter, they, too, made the decision to become family," said Sojourn.

"But you aren't… responsible for Prince Phantom."

"I am responsible for him. I am a member of the Regency Council," said Sojourn, reaching for a glass on the table.

"But not one of his guardians."

"Not as such, no," said Sojourn. "I am quite happy leaving him to Clockwork, who is a very dear friend of mine."

"And how does Jasmine factor into this?" asked the president.

"I don't," said Jazz, pulling away from a conversation with a senator friend of the president. "I'm a living human and an adult. My situation is much different." She put down her fork and knife and folded her hands, turning her full attention to the president. "Ghost family dynamics can be difficult to follow at times, but, as a general rule, if two ghosts decide that they are family, then they are. But they aren't necessarily family with their family's family."

"I see," said the president. "Then, you wouldn't consider Sojourn to be a member of your family."

The two of them shared a brief look.

Dmitri was considering vanishing right now rather than later when they had planned for it. This conversation was so terribly awkward.

"On the contrary," said Jazz, "we are. But we don't consider ourselves to be very close at the moment."

"Although, if we do grow closer in the future," said Sojourn, "it would be my honor."

"And mine," said Jasmine.

"And… do the two of you consider yourselves close? Prince Dmitri? Princess Jasmine?"

Out of all his siblings, Jazz and Damien were the ones he'd spent the most time with. Even Ellie had been spending a lot of time with Pandora since he'd been reformed. Plus, he had Danny's memories of Jazz, too. So. He nodded, not trusting his voice.

"I'd like to think so," said Jazz.

It was a bit strange, listening to Jazz speak so… coolly. Overly calm and distant. It was a political thing, Dmitri knew, and he'd seen it, heard it before, but it still felt… weird. It was weird. Weird to be included in a conversation like this, not just listening.

"Are you also close to Jack and Madeline Fenton?" asked one of the other diners, one whose name Dmitri had long since forgotten.

"No," said Dmitri, immediately.

"Oh? Why not? You'd think that if your sister is close to your parents, you would be close to hers."

"Parent," said Dmitri, emphasizing the singular. The skin of his face tingled, flushing with embarrassment and offense. "And no, it doesn't. The Fentons are ghost hunters."

"Yes," said the president, "but you don't seem to mind Jasmine."

"Jazz isn't a ghost hunter," said Dmitri.

"Interesting," said the president. "So, can I take it that your parents are not on board with the secession and what you're doing here?"

"The Infinite Realms are not seceding," said Sojourn, pleasantly, "and children hardly have to be in agreement with their parents, no matter how much more pleasant that makes things."

"Once we have the basic state of things worked out between our respective nations," said Pamela, "we can work on figuring out how to repatriate people who would prefer to be on this side of the border." She smiled. "It won't be a very large group."

"Nonetheless, they are citizens of the United States. As you still are."

"A technicality we need to iron out," said Pamela.

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The lunch eventually ended, but by that point Dmitri felt like his insides were sucking at his skin, and he immediately shrunk, hiding himself in the folds of Sojourn's clothes.

The humans startled.

"Ah," said Sojourn, "you will have to forgive Dmitri. He is still quite young, and events like this are tiring."

"And its… Less tiring for him to be… small?"

Humans were so rude, sometimes!

"Dmitri is more comfortable at this size," Sojourn told the human.

They were escorted out, the humans keeping careful eyes on them. Not careful enough, though. Dmitri slipped out.

The Chef would be infiltrating the White House in her own way, and Sojourn was planning on splitting off some invisible duplicates, once they knew what the detection equipment the humans had. Dmitri was small enough, quiet enough, that he was unlikely to set anything off and could, if detected, easily escape through one of the holes in the shields without even having to deform himself. He could also be easily mistaken for a wisp when visible, and the humans didn't seem to understand that the wisps were fully sentient and sapient (if rather alien) beings.

Dmitri's objective was to find either Freakshow's 'anchor,' or to gather more information about the humans' ghost tech.

Sojourn had been… reluctant to agree to this plan. Which Dmitri understood, really. If it had been Jazz volunteering, he'd have objected, too, but it was something he had to do.

After messing everything up so much before, he needed to help, he needed to be able to put things right. He couldn't let anyone stop him.

And all the ghosts understood that.

So, here he was. In the White House. Doing espionage. He'd never really considered himself an espionage person, but he'd been doing a lot of it. Or, at least, a lot of espionage-adjacent stuff.

Was he going to be a spy when he grew up (for certain values of growing up)? He'd thought he'd be, like… A researcher. Or maybe the kind of person who wrote travelogues. Or geography textbooks!

Actually, if he was being honest, he hadn't given much, if any, thought to his future career path. It… wasn't all that relevant for a ghost. He was just freaking out because he didn't think he was cut out to be a spy and yet, here hie was volunteering for spy stuff.

He wondered if all spies stumbled into things like that. Probably not, but it was a funny picture.

Carefully, he phased through a wall. For now, he was sticking to places that seemed like they could be accessed by the general public. Freakshow had been somewhere between a guest, but even back then he hadn't been a trusted one.

But Lydia had been with him, at least some of the time. That complicated things.

He traced along mouseholes and electrical wiring, noting additions, repairs, renovations… There was a lot of history here. Not nearly as much as in Libra, though.

He phased through into a bathroom and wrinkled his nose. Not because of the smell, it was quite clean, but because he couldn't imagine Freakshow hiding something in here. He was too dramatic, the thing he was hiding too important.

But, then, he supposed that was true for things like guns and drugs as well, and Jack and Maddie Fenton had hidden the activation button for their Ops center behind an emergency ham. People hid things in weird places, was his point. Gross places, too, so that other people wouldn't go poking around.

There was a crackling sound in his ear.

"Dmitri," said Jazz through the Phantom Phone that Danny had given him before he returned. "How are you doing?"

"Okay," whispered Dmitri. "I haven't found anything yet, though." He hadn't had much time to look around.

"Alright," said Jazz. "We're going to check in again in thirty minutes."

"Got it."

He sighed. Nothing for it, then, but to start searching the bathroom. Oh, well. He had volunteered for this. He just had to… get it over with as quickly as possible…

Ew.

Maybe he'd look in a few other places, first.

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"Alright," said the president, rubbing his hands together. "As you know, we've been trying to put together a team to liaise more directly with the ghosts for some time now. A bureau of ghostly affairs, if you would. Ms. Walker—"

Alicia Walker held up her hand. "I've heard this speech before, seeing as this is your second try at this whole thing."

The president, with some force of will, held himself together. He would have greatly preferred it if he could have gotten rid of Alicia Walker. But between her connections to the ghosts, being the one to find out about his wife's sister, and his genuine, overwhelming need for someone who at least partially knew what they were doing… He couldn't.

"Yes, well," said the president, putting on his best political smile and turning to the group that styled themselves the 'Groovy Gang.' "You're here because of your extensive history investigating ghosts." And because they were adults who paid taxes and didn't have extensive criminal histories. Also the Extreme Ghostbreakers were busy with the Secret Service – or would be once they recovered from the injuries they'd sustained trying to fight off the ghosts controlled by Freakshow and Chloe.

"Actually," said Fran, adjusting her glasses and raising her hand, "most of our work is in uncovering frauds and hoaxes, not with actual supernatural entities."

"What about the white tiger?" asked the president. The animal's behavior wasn't normal by any stretch of the imagination.

"Oh, he's just a normal white tiger," said Andy. "A big ol' scaredy cat!" He laughed, nervously.

"I'm not sure why I'm here, either," said a woman wearing a rose beige pantsuit and pearl earrings. "I'm just a local news host. I thought this was all some kind of prank until people actually picked me up…" She trailed off.

"Yes, Florence, Offshore Flo," said the president.

She winced. "I don't actually like that nickname. It was a marketing thing."

"I'll try to keep that in mind," said the president. "But you were the one who reported on the 'weather ghost' last year?" She was also personable and able to carry on a sane conversation, which, the president had discovered, many people involved with ghosts could not.

"Yes, that was me."

"Well, there you have it." He looked around the room at the other people he'd called to form the team. Top-level diplomats, a couple of philosophers (who were already arguing), ghost experts (mostly frauds themselves – maybe he should set the Groovy Gang on them), physicists, and various religious people.

This was going to go terribly, he could tell.

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Inky stepped out of a shadow and into the interior of a large van, where a small white tiger was napping on an inflatable bed. She meowed.

The tiger opened one eye and made a sound that could, possibly, have been translated into a similar meow.

The rest of the conversation wasn't nearly so loud and went on for several minutes. Once Inky was satisfied, she left the way she'd come. It was always nice to catch up with a friend, although she'd never understand why this particular one had decided to look like this. Simply incomprehensible. Almost as bad as humans!

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Dmitri poked his head through the wall and paused. There were a lot of people here, in this room. He should go, but… The president was here. So was Jazz's aunt. Maybe this was important in some way.

He settled down to watch.