"It's wonderful that you managed to find a new friend Danny! What did you say your name was?"

"Mom," Danny groaned in discomfort. He had found the end of his rope on the couch. As much as he enjoyed the company of his friends, he was perfectly willing to let them go to spare them the smothering that would last a century.

Loitering in the entry was Randy glanced up a wall of family portraits. Mouth open and studying them closely. Almost automatically, he introduced, "Randall Cunningham, but everyone calls me Randy."

Danny involuntarily chuckled at Randy's ability to just morph naturally from situation to situation. He was impressed with how flexible Randy could be, despite that he was one of those friends he kept at school. Strictly at school. Adults of Amity Park tended to respond negatively to people who went against the grain. Randy certainly didn't act like anyone he ever met. Spontaneous to the point of recklessness, cocky, and blunt was a combination most adults tried to grow out of their children. However, he seemed to be doing just fine. Almost respectable.

"Wow, Mrs. Fenton— is this bombshell in the picture you?"

Okay, maybe he laid the flattery on a little thick.

Maddie adjusted her goggles. Upon recognizing the photo, she agreed with modesty, "Why, thank you, Randy! ... and yes, that was me once upon a time."

Cunningham pointed to another person in the picture, "Who's this guy?"

"Oh, that's Jack, my husband," Mrs. Fenton explained.

"And this guy?" Randy's finger moved from one face to another.

"That's Vlad Masters."

"Vlad Masters," Randy repeated under his breath.

Seeing Randy's eyes open like the name should mean something to him. He studied the photo without another word. That's what shut him up, Danny thought. For the first time all day, Randy didn't have a comment to share. He silently resigned himself to the pictures.

"Yeah, he's like if Steve Jobs had a super handsome cousin who did nothing but aspires to own the Packers," Tucker dismissed the photo.

Danny added for extra measure, "Total creep show."

Without much argument Mrs. Fenton folded her hands together, "He's also Danny's Uncle."

"Neat," Randy hobbled away from the wall, settled with his snooping. He plopped himself in the recliner, getting comfortable. The EMT did say that he should keep his foot elevated. Randy found the lever to the chair, flipping it casually.

"WAIT, RANDY—!"

Randy paused in, reaching for the plate of cookies on the coffee table, "What?"

A siren adorning the top of the basement door began to bleat and bathe the living room in blue light. Dense footsteps came clamoring up the stairs, slamming the door open a man in an orange jumpsuit pointed a chrome device directly at Randy.

The man bellowed out, "The goldie-locks alarm was triggered! Who's sitting in my chair?!"

Maddie sighed and crossed her arms, "Jack, you had the time to install a goldie-locks alarm but didn't fix the doorbell?"

"The question still stands, Maddie. Who is this strange boy?"

Mrs. Fenton walked up to the side of the recliner pressing Randy's head into the side of her hip and petting his hair, "Well, Jack, if you bothered to go to the PTA meetings once in a while. You'd know that this boy is an exchange student."

Cunningham looked to Danny for help, but Danny was busy rubbing his temples in frustration.

Then in the thickest Midwest accent imaginable, Jack began his introduction again, "How about that- ! Gomen' Nassai bucko," he continued while over pronouncing, "Welcome to our country."

Randy offered a surrendering wave, "Uh thanks, I'm from Norrisville."

"Can one of you shut that alarm off?!" Tucker yelled over the siren, which was still letting out a monotone and robotic whine every two to five seconds.

Danny removed his aching body from the embrace of his couch and ducked into the hallway, briefly opening up a circuit breaker. With a lasting drawn-out sigh the whole time, the sharp click of the circuit knobs were snapped off.

Tucker sighed, "Thank you."

Adjusting the plate, Maddie grabbed Tucker a cookie. Always the smothering mother, she asked, "You boys are more than welcome to spend the night. After all, you've been through; I just don't think it's safe for you kids to be out this late."

"I should be heading back to the hotel soon, actually," Randy was itching to return to his laptop and update his handler with information… as well as waste the night away with video games with Howard.

He shrugged, "I was supposed to check in with my science teacher, but Danny was showing me the sights." Randy pointed knowingly as if he was still in the company of friends, "Right dude?"

"Danny!"

Groaning with his face in his hands, attempting to get an early jump on his shut-eye. He knew Randy wouldn't last long. Danny pretended to know not what she was angry with, "Yes, mom?"

"I don't want to hear about you getting in trouble tomorrow, young man."

Randy realized what he said or, more accurately, who he said it in front of— then corrected, "Oh no ma'am, it was all me, I won't even mention it when I get back to the hotel."

Sidling over to the table, Mr. Fenton began to siphon the baked goods from the plate, "Honesty is the best policy. However, We don't appreciate snitches in this house."

"Jack!"

"What?!" Danny's father spoke with his mouth full, "You've met our son. He needs all the allies he can get."

Mumbling through his hand shield, Danny was astonished that he managed to make it this long, "Thanks for the shining endorsement, Pop."

Feeling the need to speak up- to clarify- to help at all, Randy noticed the tv had been on the news. Showing the highlights of the fight downtown. The phantom grappling the dragon— busting out some pro wrestling type maneuvers. Randy acknowledged the distraction, "Hey, Look, it's that ghost dude! Invisobill!"

That didn't seem to ease the tension.

In fact, that was the equivalent of launching an atom bomb on a scraped knee.

Danny shot Randy a look.

Tucker shot the same look.

'Oh no, he did not.'

A dry chuckle seemed to ignite the static silence, "Please tell me you have enough common sense not to follow the crowd and lap at the Koolaid fountain the rest of the town have immortalized in the image of that smug ghost punk?"

Mr. Fenton wielded his words with surprisingly sharp articulation for a man who made an alarm for when someone sat in his recliner. It was genuinely chilling, as Mr. Fenton was a gigantic ape of a man. Both parts brain and brawn— just no common sense to be measured.

Sheepishly Randy revealed, "He saved my life."

Rolling his eyes, Jack refused, "No, son, paramedics save lives. This ghost only endangers it— they all do. It's something obviously it has no control over—"

Danny's face sunk at this response.

"Ghosts attract other ghosts, whether it's a pheromone or energy they admit… Ghosts are so fundamentally lonely that they do anything to lure us in. It's the nature of death. It seeks out indiscriminately."

Despite the dourness of the subject, Mr. Fenton seemed to speak with educated confidence. He strolled over to his bookshelf, retrieving a rather large— large enough to be considered nonfiction— book," here's my paper I wrote in college."

"I mean, I feel like that's a lot of paper, bound together, in a boooooooooooo—"

Jack dropped the dense text onto Randy's chest, which knocked the wind out of him.

"Dad!" Danny rose," He's got cracked ribs—"

"Don't forget the concussion," Tucker added while kneeling to Randy's side.

"Explains the nonsense he's spouting."

Danny pushes his dad in the center of his chest," Dad, seriously! Just because— just because someone has a different— perspective that doesn't mean—!"

Suddenly Danny's fists were clenched, and his eyes flashed?

Did Randy see that right? Did his eyes just change color? It was like they were the epicenter of a supernova— they glowed with an unnatural brightness, for a second at most.

"Uh— hey- It's been a trip, Fentons, but I gotta go." Randy stood up, stuffing the book in his bag,

Shrugging, he offered,"- and now I can read up... yknow for my report about Amityville,"

"No— Randy, it's okay you can stay," Maddie comforted.

Danny shouted above them all, "He should go. Because clearly Dad can handle people as well as he can handle ghosts: he can't."

"That's it!"

Yanking on his sleeve Tucker hoisted Randy up, urging him out the door and away from the squabbling Fentons. Tucker shut the door on the way out, making sure not to slam it.

"Anddddd that's why we don't talk about Danny's folks that much," He said flatly. Suppose they were due for the weekly fight, predictably unpredictable like the weather.

"They're scientists," Randy was confused, "Shouldn't they be popping champagne every night for proving the afterlife?"

"No, no—" Tucker blinked; there was so much wrong with that take. Foley wasn't sure where to begin to pick it apart. He shook his head, "Trust me; they think it's cool, only as an excuse to exercise their weapons, traps, and other devices."

Randy got to the bottom step without help; when Foley attempted to aid him, it just made Randy go faster. It had gotten a lot colder, a piercing gust of wind causing both of them to freeze in place. Randy shivered, "So? It sounds like they could be doing the right thing? Detaining ghosts, stopping them from causing damage?"

Tucker looked at him- that was an odd opinion for someone to have for someone who wanted to meet one of the 'worst' ghosts.

Correcting himself, Randy shook his head, "I mean- from their perspective- they must think they're doing the right thing. Though- They are kind of intense about it."

From inside, they could hear Jack screaming, followed by another alarm going off, "-MOLECULE BY MOLECULE! MARK MY WORDS, GHOST PUNK!"

"Really intense," Randy surmised, "Passionate, even..."

Tucker led the way to the bus stop around the corner, "There's a lot of reasons why they're like that."

"Why they're… totally not scary?"

"We pretend that we hate ghosts, I'll admit that much." Tucker only did so since Randy had figured that out on his own. He defended, "But we only pretend that we do so Danny's parents to flip out. If they found out we were friends with Invisobill, they'd uh… torture him?"

Cunningham fidgeted, "That's kind of… brutal."

Tucker explained, "They weren't always so aggressive. I think over the years, they just got so obsessed with every failure that the sight of success within reach made them angry?"

"That's putting it mildly."

"See, in the early days, the Fentons were the first ones to propose a ghost dimension theory. The idea that ghosts come from a reflected reality of earth. They were shrugged off, of course, then one of their experiments gave this barely treatable disease to Vlad— then the Fentons lost funding, called quacks, disbarred, the whole thing. This isn't just about them being right; they have to earn it." Tucker spoke about it in a hushed voice in case somehow any of the Fentons heard him.

Quirking a brow in response, Randy wasn't exactly an A science student, so an alternate dimension was a hard sell. It was a headache. Randy found himself holding the knot all the threads made instead of seeing what they connected to. Surely despite not being human, the ghosts must have had some humanity? Any sense of morals? Was that what made the Phantom different?

The two found themselves at the bus stop, the last bus wasn't coming for another half an hour, but it was better to be in the air of the crisp night versus a warm house with a warring family. Randy couldn't relate to that. For the most part, his parents dismissed the ninja as a normal happening and went about their day. They were often so busy Randy hardly saw them as is to get their opinion on such things. He knew it was wrong, but he yearned for something like what Danny had— so at least he'd have something to talk about with his folks.

"So if it's a ghost dimension," Randy led in," shouldn't it be a die-mension?"

"Dude," Tucker pinched his tear ducts, "Alright, that's enough tourist talk, and ancient history, tell me about the ninja."

Straightening his posture, Randy coyly queried, "The ninja…. The ninja... the Norrisville Ninja?"

"No, the Broadway Ninja— yes, the Norrisville Ninja!"

It was quiet for a moment. Randy hadn't shot back with one of his seemingly endless responses or deflections about it. He stared at a storm drain," Uh… heh… I don't really like talking about it."

"I think it's the least you could do," Foley bristled, "I answered your questions. You answer mine, that's only fair."

Cunningham stared at Tucker, deliberating internally. Narrowing his eyes, he remained silent for a moment. Softly he began, "For centuries, the ninja has protected Norrisville, all of it. The whole thing. We get these monsters, I want to say they're oni in origin, but I don't know. What no one wants to talk about is that these monsters are born from ego death."

"Ego death?" Tucker asked, leaning in.

Randy rubbed his forehead, "Ugh, it's like… it's like… the unspoken rage and resentment in the hearts of man, the destruction of a person's identity. The monsters are people."

Tucker sat down. He took a breath, "So… the ninja has to destroy the people he has to protect?"

"No, not quite, the ninja has to destroy their 'fetish'—"

"Hey whoa—"

Leaning against the glass booth, Randy chuckled, "Not like that. I mean it from the purely historical— archaeological sense; the ninja has to destroy the monster's most treasured possession or their object they worship. The soul of the person— their identity is trapped in that object. The only way to destroy the monster is to release the soul to reclaim the body."

"Wow."

"Yeah, it's a thing," Randy shifted with the breeze cutting through him again, "The people most at risk to become monsters are just people who can't control their emotions-"

"...teenagers." Foley cut him off.

"Yeah." Randy nodded sullenly, "They're more susceptible to Ego Death."

He shrugged, "So instead of teaching everyone while they're still young how to control their emotions, conflict resolution— counseling— so on, they just rely on the Ninja to clean up the mess."

It wasn't common knowledge, the process of how the sausage was made. It was people traumatizing each other over the pettiest and trivial things. Only the ninja, the sorcerer, and Howard knew that much, though. It felt good to talk to someone else about it. However, seeing Tucker's expression twist, Randy regretted mentioning it.

"It's created this weird culture." He laughed despite not finding it humorous, "you have kids having gold star clubs— never turned monster. Y'know? It's— it's messed up. Like it's something that everyone is supposed to go through. Having their body removed from their control and— and—"

"Anddddddd that's why you don't talk about the ninja." Tucker looked at how distant Cunningham had become, "… have you ever…?"

"If I could remember, I would tell you," He adjusted his bag now heavy with the weight of two larges tomes that he barely had the attention span for, "Considering the exact same amount of people avoid me, I don't think I turned."

... Remembering the incident with Desiree- and then the incident with Hotep Ra- Tucker found himself carving a space in that narrative. An ignored outsider.

"It just- really pisses me off, yknow?" Randy admitted before sinking down on the bench next to Tucker. He began to bounce his uninjured leg restlessly, "That's why I want to meet the ghost dude so bad."

"Because he pisses you off?"

"No- I just, I wonder how he copes with… " Randy bit his lip, "How he copes with being different. I thought if I could talk to someone who is a monster. I could maybe… not become one? If I knew what it took to… to keep myself- me. I know that doesn't make any sense, but I just thought he would get it. I-I mean, he seems like a lonely guy. If he's befriending humans… why not me? And like- he saved my life, I have to thank him for that."

Awkwardly Tucker rubbed his own arm. Rolling his sleeves down, he offered, "... I think that if you want to talk to him or something, I can maybe-"

Without warning, Randy threw his arms around Foley into a tight hug his voice was wavering and fluttering," Thank you so much, Tuck! You have no idea how much this means to me."

"It-it's not a guarantee, okay? He's a very busy guy!"

Lips parting, Randy broke into a large smirk.