This chapter... man... I am tired. I try not to just fill my chapters with just people talking with each other because I exhaust literally all dialogue tags I can before using 'said' I just hope that this isn't as tedious to read as it was to write. Anywhooo- I'm getting some dino nuggets. ~Cosmo


The journey to Randy's next class was mostly silent, verbally at least. The sound of the rubber crutch tips hitting the tile rhythmically was the only hint that Danny got that Randy was following him. Danny was unsure how to approach a conversation. Cunningham did appear to be a tad possessive of his bag for his own reasons. Probably a Pavlovian response from bullying or something similar, Fenton hypothesized.

Ugh, ew, he was turning into his sister.

He got the impression that Randy could've been the low man on the totem pole back home.

"So… the ninja," Danny started, "Does he only go after robots and monsters?"

"Plus monster-robots."

"Right." Danny slowed, allowing Randy to match his speed. He posited, "So then he only goes after bad- creatures?"

Randy suddenly halted, "Uh- yeah, of course, he does? Wh-what the juice are you trying to say?"

"Oh- no, I'm- I'm not trying to offend you or anything. Just that Invisobill isn't exactly a bad guy. If the ninja knew that th-"

Randy countered almost defensively, "I thought you guys hated ghosts? I thought everyone here hates ghosts?"

"It's complicated." Fenton stopped at the stairs, "Here's the hard part. How do you want to do this, do you want to hold on to your stuff and I'll lead you up or-"

Without warning, Randy dropped his crutches and began to climb the stairs. Hopping on his good foot- trying to land on the stair ahead. This method was longer and unsafer than any Danny would have suggested. It wasn't that Randy was in the way, but it was causing some students to either maneuver around him or go to the other staircase.

"Dude!" Danny couldn't believe that Randy was so against his help. He held the arm rail in case he had to chase after the other 9th grader.

"Look, I got it, see?" Cunningham caught the edge of the fifth step before slamming his shoulder into the stairwell wall.

Danny, not wanting him to spill out onto the floor, which would arguably hurt worse than crashing on a friend, yanked on Randy's hood. Sending both of them to the linoleum, their backpacks cushioned some of the fall. Randy's back crashed into Danny's chest. In the collision, Cunningham had thrashed his head back, hitting Fenton in the forehead where he was still recovering from his headbutt from the ninja.

Both teens groaned.

"What was your plan there, genius?" Danny scowled before remembering that Cunningham wasn't just an idiot with a bad foot- he was an idiot with a bad foot and swiss cheese for ribs. Fenton got to his knees, shaking out his head, making sure Randy wasn't bleeding or worse.

"Ugh… Total shoob-move."

Danny blurted out, "Can you just- let me help you?! Let me take your bag- or something, at least!"

"Why d- do you care?" Randy tried to pull himself up, but it nearly caused him to scream. He rolled onto his side, and weakly attempted to gather his papers and school supplies.

The other students in the hallway just seemed to stop and stare or just pretend they didn't see. Danny couldn't blame either reaction. He found the question asinine. Asinine and frustrating. Fenton attempted to prop up Randy, pulling him by the armpits.

"Ow-OW- OWOW OW- STOP! DANNY!"

"You're really not giving me a lot to work with here, pal."

"I- I can get myself up." Randy swatted him, "I can walk myself to my next class-! Stop following me if you're going to pity me."

"You got hurt, and that's my fault!" Danny exploded.

"So, you're helping me because you- you feel bad? Just- say that now." Randy grunted, transitioning onto his knees, "So we don't have to go through that awkward stage of you pretending to like me."

Danny got the oddest sense of deja-vu.

Holding his injured side away from Danny, Randy appeared to be trying to pass off that he wasn't really in that much pain.

"Randy, we're friends, you idiot. Of course, I like you." Danny said, retrieving the crutches and thrusting them towards Cunningham, "You're just as stubborn as I am. Probably more confident, which I am jealous of, you're weird, but clearly, you don't care- of course, we're friends."

"You do realize we just met, like not even sixteen hours ago?" Randy seethed before pushing himself up to his good foot.

"So? Friends come and go. Some of them aren't destined to be permanent; I'd rather be your friend now then keep having this stupid argument." Danny grabbed his bag from the floor. A black leather tome had been hiding underneath his backpack. The red lettering seemed to glow when exposed to the light. Danny picked up the unfamiliar book.

Upon finally getting himself standing, Randy exclaimed, "What the juice-!"

"That's mine!" He reached but couldn't follow through when he felt his ribs protest.

Instinctively, Danny held it away from Randy. A defense that he got from having an older sister and Dash around. He blinked at the cover, unable to read it. It looked to be covered in Japanese characters. After taking a moment to just look at it, he gave it back to Randy, who nearly took his hands with it. Cunningham exhaled with relief.

"Dude, it's cool if you have a diary," Danny scratched his head.

Randy blinked. He didn't say anything initially. Though for some strange reason, he appeared… amused. Amused, clearly at ease like he had been overreacting. Randy sighed, his eyebrows still pinched with adrenaline, "Yeah- my diary."

Danny nagged once more, "Can I, please, walk you to class now, so you don't end up breaking your jaw next?"

"Fine," Randy finally returned to his normal or as-normal-as-Randy-could-be cadence, "But don't think you're getting a kiss on the cheek- I'm not that kind of boy."

"Ha, ha."


Sam paced the cramped floor of the janitor's closet with five wide steps. Another tick of hers. Which Tucker totally didn't find annoying. At least the pen-pushing didn't involve him getting his fingers stepped on with pleather boots. She muttered, "I don't like him, Tucker."

Tucker pulled out his secret laptop, sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor. He figured he would power through Lancer's assignment while they waited. He rolled his eyes. Tucker continued to type, ignoring Sam's paranoid spiral.

"Tucker?"

"Yep?"

"I don't like him."

"Yep."

Stamping her foot impatiently, Sam demanded, "Did you hear me?"

"Girl, people in orbit can hear you, damn." Foley barely looked over his screen. Normally when Sam got herself keyed up, he always attempted to be as supportive as possible. Though she always rejected him.

Then, of course, he wasn't on the same page with her, vis a vis 'Randy is a creep' thing. Any reasoning he did give resulted in Sam saying, 'well, of course, you'd like him.'

For once, Tucker decided to let her nurse herself through a freakout. Self-Soothing, like he attempted to do with their flour sack baby project.

"Sam, do you know if your parents let you self-soothe, or were they the type of parents who viewed crying babies worse than like- I don't know-" Tucker suggested, "racists?"

"Dude, what the hell are you talking about?"

"It got your mind off of it, though, huh?" Tucker raised an eyebrow.

The janitor's door opened, the pair saw the light from the outside creep up their legs. They froze, unsure if it was a friend or staff member.

"Sorry, that took longer than I thought it would."

Sam held a mop as a weapon, "Danny! Gah- don't do that."

"Did you want me to knock?" Danny closed the door.

"That would be appropriate! Yes! It's almost like we're trying to have a covert meeting during school hours or something-" Sam set the mop down and took a seat on the floor across from Tucker.

Tucker casually continued his homework, flipping his laptop back open- trying to connect to the teacher's wifi network- again. He happened just so happened to be the calmest one out of the three. It only slightly annoyed him, Foley cracked, "Double-O-Goth, Sam Manson: international teen of mystery."

She kicked him, "Shut up, Tucker."

"Danny, not that I don't enjoy being stuffed in a room that's five-by-five feet, with a hormonal girl, and getting loopy on cleaning fumes- but why are we here?" Foley opened several tabs for Miyamoto Musashi and began a wide search on all social media for the content tag: NHN.

Sam scrambled for the mop handle, "Hormonal? Hormonal?! I'll show you-"

Fenton rolled it out of her reach, "Enough- the both of you have been stirring the pot all night. You guys are friends; start acting like it!"

For a moment, Tucker looked up at Danny. His friend that he was willing to follow to the end, then he looked at Sam. The friend he could barely sit with in the county jail because she wanted to protest for purpleback gorilla enrichment.

She pointed at Tucker, "Literally- everything was fine until Randy showed up. I can't be the only one who sees that coincidence. The day he shows up, you get attacked by the ninja."

"Sam, when did you stop to think that Randy wasn't the only Norrisville student who came to Amity Park?" Tucker surmised.

"He's the only one asking questions he shouldn't."

"He's a total klutz; he can't even get himself up the stairs, let alone flip around like a gymnast," Danny insisted, "And he's not who I'm worried about."

Tucker tapped the wall and declared like he should've been wearing white curls, "The floor recognizes Daniel Fenton."

Sam huffed.

"Thanks, Tuck." Danny took off his bag and sat against the door. Before getting himself worked up once again, he took a moment to organize the information in his head.

"Is this about the weird kid that came to your house?" Manson queried.

Tucker glanced from his screen, surprised that he hadn't heard of this information earlier, "What weird kid?"

"Some kid, some short kid-" Danny began, "He wanted to buy ghost equipment."

Tucker remarked bitterly, "Well, your family at least sold something."

"Don't start," Fenton sneered.

Danny began to unpack it, "He said he could... That he could see ghosts?"

Sam became worried, "But he couldn't see you? Right?"

"That's how I knew he was lying. He couldn't see me- he couldn't detect me at all. That isn't the weirdest part. Somehow he snuck in the Box Ghost into my house."

"What?" Tucker nearly shut his laptop, "He snuck in a ghost without ghost equipment, and he did it without triggering the alarms in your house?"

"I- I don't know how he did other than he's- he's in communication with ghosts, somehow."

"Could he be half ghost too?" Sam picked at her boot aglet nervously.

"I don't know, if he is, he's been at this longer than I have." Danny tugged at his eyebags, sand still in his tear ducts. He felt a sharp migraine coming on. He thought of his father, how happy he was for someone to be interested in what he was trying to say, what he had been saying for years. Danny couldn't fathom it, but his father was- starved of human connection. Everyone didn't take his job seriously. Jack had this belief no matter the inherent ethics of it, this belief was so powerful he had to sacrifice respect, money, and who knows what else. In hopes of chasing the storm. Nothing that ever seemed to be in short supply was his faith.

His dad was more alike to Danny than he knew. They both were desperate for a connection- that someone had been listening. Anyone at all. Danny couldn't find the energy to be angry with his father.

Fenton rested his head onto his knees, "He played my dad better than all three of us combined. Before I left today, my mom was already making dinner plans with the kid."

"So a-a ghost hunter, who may or may not be half ghost, came in from off the street and-" Tucker took off his glasses, closely following behind on the headache train. He closed his eyes, "wanted weapons, and your folks gave him some?"

"He tried to pass off some crock about how he was a cryptid-zoologist in the practice of preservation." Danny shrugged, "Or Something. I couldn't hear him, because his dog was investigating me. They haven't gotten to the weapons thing yet. Mom and Dad mentioned something about training."

Sam crossed her arms, "This is a mess."

"Gee, you're telling me."

Foley was a man of solutions. He opened up more tabs, "Did he say what his name was? What does he look like? Anything I can go off of so we can have a chance at a fight?"

"He was Asian about four-foot-ten, he looked like he was twelve, but he said he was sixteen black hair, he said his name was Jake Long." Fenton rattled off, his posture deflating.

Tucker went quiet and began typing frantically. As if he was trying to burn through the keys.

"So- uh while he's doing… that," Sam gestured to Foley, "Did you get any information out of Randy?"

"I was being nice, Sam, no ulterior motives." Danny was becoming exhausted with her paranoia. He teased, "You should give it a shot sometime."

Scowling, she didn't think he was being particularly nice right now. Sam held her shoulders and took a breath. She persuaded, "Humor me."

Sam had been effectively hugging herself, just something to put herself at ease, "Tell me why he couldn't be the ninja. Then I'll drop it."

"Dude's got a diary." Danny chuckled, "Apparently he's super protective of his bag- seriously, he grabbed my arm so tight I thought that-"

Sam's eyes were large.

"I think someone has to be impersonating the ninja." Danny presented his theory, "If this guy is eight centuries old, and like- Randy said that the guy only ever goes after irredeemably bad creatures-"

"That's not what he told me," Tucker softly interrupted, "He… he said that the monsters were… the monsters were the students."

"What?" Sam held herself tighter.

"Randy told me last night that the reason he wanted to meet the phantom was because… he wanted to learn what it was like to… like to be…" Tucker trailed off, "Randy said that the teens were turning into the monsters because… because their emotions got the better of them."

Manson gasped, "Oh my god."

"Why would he lie to me…?"

"I don't know why either of you are surprised!" Sam yelled, "You guys do remember we spent a majority of our school life lying about what we're doing and where we are?"

"We should keep an eye on him, I'll agree to that," Tucker conceded.

Danny pointed to the laptop, "What about Jake Long?"

Swiveling the computer around, Tucker pulled up an incredibly long list of social media profiles, "Apparently, Jake Longs are the new John Does."

Foley gestured to the screen with different Variations of the Name, "Is there anything else that could help me narrow it down? Did he say where he was from? Did he say anything about people he associates with?"

"He mentioned something about a teacher he had… something- Rottwood, a folklore and archeological studies guy… and my Dad's paper on refractive domestic wormholes?"

"Hans Rottwood?" Tucker asked.

"Yes! Yes, that's the guy!"

Danny saw that Tucker was scrolling through a website by how the light reflected on his glasses. He read off, "Hans Rottwood had been discharged from his professor position following the disturbing obsession with the paranormal. Campus police had allegedly found large metal cages and traps as well as pictures of his students on a wall with hypotheses on what creature they were under their 'guises.'"

"Yikes," Was all Danny and Sam could utter.

"That's not all!" Tucker held up his hand, "Along with this supposed 'hit list,' he had covered his walls with mirrors to perform what was known as a 'scrying' ritual. The mirrors were to be used to commune with demons or the dead."

"So… what I'm hearing is that either this guy was an extreme narcissist or-," Sam attempted to bring some levity, "he clearly had a way to talk to spirits with mirrors."

"My dad's paper-! Refractive domestic wormholes that's like big-brain speak for mirrors, right?!" Danny felt as if they were close to a breakthrough.

"Ghosts and mirrors…" Sam murmured, "Why does that sound so familiar?"

"SIDNEY POINTDEXTER!" "POINTDEXTER!" "...HOLY CRAP!"