Ren strode into the room, moving the chair over and sitting down as Najerin closed the door behind them and moved over to the bed, eyeing the white haired creature distrustfully but saying nothing.

Ren gestured to the space next to her, folding her hands. The creature slowly moved to float next to her, his face solemn as he digested her story.

Ren watched him closely, absorbing his reactions carefully. She couldn't put her finger on it but something about this creature felt…familiar. His powers, his aura, it was brimming with a power that felt like a creature, and yet it was faint. Like looking at a bright glowing aurora in the dark and trying to fly through it, or trying to grab the moon right out of the sky. so close but so far away.

There was also one other thing, it was faint but it felt….void-like, warm and gone. Like something in deep hibernation, or in a near death state, yet…Alive?

She closed her eyes, her head starting to hurt from trying to figure out what that 'other thing' was. she drew back her powers from it for now and concentrated on just the outmost, his current emotions and such. What she felt was still there; concern, worry, an urge to do something and knowing he couldn't, and fear for another's life. Interesting.

"So now that I told you what happened," Abridged version for my sake, "Mind telling me a few things about yourself. Who are you? Where are you from?"

"My name's Phantom." He said flatly, "I've been staying here in Kiru for a while now."

Ren nodded, "Ok, with you so far. Where were you before this Phantom?"

"Around."

Ren frowned at this, inwardly a part of his aura had flinched, outwardly he was the same. Even if she didn't need that to tell her so, she knew he was lying. She was about to press further when a cold blue mist poured from his mouth, causing him to turn to the boy in the bed with renewed fear.

Ren found herself automatically doing the same when the boy began to thrash out. her eyes widening as she saw his aura, "NAJERIN!"

"I KNOW!" already the muge was channeling his powers.

***8***

Danny watched in almost a trance as the two worked, Najerin using a glowing ring of crystal in his hand sending light into the Kaz's body, the girl's eyes glowing as a mass of darkness surrounded her hand and mingled like moonlight into Najerin's light, a soft hum escaping her lips as she sang a soft melody.

Kaz still struggled as if in pain beneath their touch, mouth open in a silent scream.

What's happening to him? what am I doing here?...I…I don't know what to do…it's getting cold… as another whisp of cold blue escaped his mouth something clicked, his memory brought up a hospital full of high school kids moaning and suffering with bouts of invisibility, intangibility, floating in air, melting into pools of living ectoplasm. That was when Spectra had created and used some kind of ghost insect to infect the school, causing everyone to have a part of ghostly ability with no control like a disease so she could gather DNA samples and make a new host body for herself.

It didn't work on him, but something about it was the same…no, this was….

{Wrong….}

Danny blinked, feeling a pull back on reality, more mist escaping his mouth as his ghostly dragon like eyes saw something, a voice seeming to fill his head.

{Burning…this is wrong…help us…please help us}

He took a heavy step forward, then another, and another, he wasn't sure how he knew but he did. He knew he could help, he knew exactly what to do.

***8***

Ren focused her energy, sweat forming on her forehead as she worked to harmonize with Najerin's power towards healing the human before them, her stomach beginning to tie itself in knots as she felt the boy's aura fading in her hands, like a fire braving a storm and slowly being put out.

"We're losing him. have you found the source yet?"

Najerin's twisted expression of hardened concentration, she didn't need to see his aura or hear him speak to know the answer. She couldn't understand it, what was causing this? a physical injury wouldn't be causing them so much trouble, poison or magic maybe, but the effects didn't match anything she knew of, and obviously not anything in Najerin's experience otherwise he would've done something already. But his aura, no effect with magic, poisoning, necromancy, possession, charms, drugs or even allergies would do something like this to someone's aura. It was almost like his own energy had suddenly decided to reject him, nothing could do that in any way or form.

"Don't die one us kid." She pleaded under her breath, "Please…"

A hand with cloth wrapped knuckles reached out, just barely touching the blanket as it moved back and forth then headed down. Ren looked up into Phantom's face, trying not to let her emotions break her focus.

"Phantom get back, let us handle this." she yelled.

The white haired creature didn't seem to hear, his face unreadable as a green light emanated from his hand. Ren called the shadows around her, intent on shoving the young creature away.

"I said…"

"REN!"

She realized too late that she had broken her connection with Najerin's powers, and now the boy had gone eerily still. his life energy barely visible, a spark about to go out.

"N-no…" Ren felt her knees became too weak to stand on.

She blinked up at Phantom, his expression unchanged as his glowing hand moved down to the boy's leg and stopped.

Najerin touched a hand to his shoulder, his voice crestfallen, "Phantom, whatever you're doing, I don't think…"

Phantom moved the blanket so the leg was visible. Najerin's eyes went wide, followed by Ren's as she looked over to see a large ugly welt wrapping around like a tentacle on the boy's skin, his hands now both alight with green energy. His eyes began to glow green, blue and silver as he touched Kaz's skin.

Najerin turned to her in a silent question, Ren unable to turn her face away watched as Phantom poured some sort of green energy into the boy's wound. He then made a grabbing motion with one hand and pulled, a bright blue mass like smoke came tearing away from the boy's leg fading into nothing. he did it again, and again, one hand still pouring in green energy until the smoke seemed to leap from the boy of its own accord.

Finally the green glow began to fade, the smoke fading into nothing as the welt vanished, like it was never there.

Phantom then dropped to his knees, his dragon like eyes watering as he gasped to catch his breath.

Ren moved to his side, Najerin helping him to the chair after replacing the blanket.

"What exactly did you just do?" the blue muge asked, "That wound was not there in anyway before."

Phantom shook his head, looking like he had just run for miles, "I…I'm not really sure…I just knew…"

{…Thank you…} a small voice whispered.

Ren's ears pricked, looking about to see who had said that; but there nothing. Najerin locked eyes with her a moment, silently dispersing her thought that she had been hearing things. her eyes then went wide for another reason, her churning stomach settling back down.

She turned to the boy in bed, touching his forehead and breaking into a smile, "Thank the heavens you did. His fever broke, and his aura is returning to normal."

The blue mage looked at her in surprise, he then took a closer look for himself. Sure enough the boy's skin was no longer burning as it started regaining it' normal color, and his breathing became easier and more even, like he was simply asleep.

He sighed in relief turning to the dragon eyed creature in the chair, "I don't know how you did it, or why. But at this point, perhaps it doesn't matter. Thank you."

Phantom leaned back, his eyes looking up at the celling, "Sure…just…don't ask me to do it again any time soon."

***8***

Tom was listening to Sarah and Payton argue about the match. Payton was firm in his belief that Semiwrath had taken over. Sarah having voluntarily let a creature take over in a match before was finding it a little hard to believe.

"come on Payton, in a match it's you and your opponent playing as the creature. even if you let them battle for you it's still you in there.'

"I'm telling you the guy pushed me out, I didn't have any idea what was going on, totally blacked out. out of my mine girl."

"You're out of your mind now if you think I'll believe that Semiwrath, a scan of him and not the real thing, battled for you."

Payton's teeth were grinding by now as he slammed his hands on the table, standing up to lean over the table, "I don't know how I happened, but I wasn't the one who sat back and let it happen."

Sarah got up, mimicking his position so she stood directly eye to eye with him, "And I'm telling you, it's not possible. Creature's aren't even alive in a match."

"Tom!"

The raven haired boy jerked up, shrinking at the gaze of two very upset looking players.

"Tell her/him he's/She's wrong." the two said at the same time.

Tom held up his hands, hoping he wasn't about to step on a landmine, "I know I was there when it happened but, I'm not really sure what did happen you guys."

"So you admit that it's impossible for a creature scan to just take over during a match." Sarah said, folding her arms and smiling like she had just won a big bet. Payton growled darkly at her.

"I WAS THE ONE WHO FELT IT HAPPEN YOU…PIRCELLA WANNABE."

Sarah slammed her hands on the table again, fire in her eyes, "Take that back you egotistical sore loser."

Tom sighed, pulling out his scanner, "Ok how about I call Kaz, get him to come back for a match with Sarah and Payton can lend his Semiwrath scan to whichever he wants. If it happens again we can always report it to the code masters and found out what's up."

The Dainian and Mipedian players both sat down in a huff turning away from each other, 'Fine."

Tom sighed, sometimes he wondered how they were still friends after all the fights they had, not including the one they still had now and again about which tribe was the best of them all. four players each with a different favorite tribe caused for interesting points of view now and then.

The scanner hummed a little as it rang up Kaz, the screen popping up video as someone picked it up. he smiled, "Hey Kaz, Payton won a match with his new scan and now…"

He froze as he saw a wizened old face with blue skin, Overworld Mugician Najerin.

"I'm afraid young Kaz is unable to speak with anyone right now." he said slowly

Tom opened his mouth to ask, only to be interrupted by two faces pressing to get a closer look at who was on screen.

"Najerin, dude. what's going on?"

"Why do you have Kaz's scanner?"

"He's not in trouble is he?"

The blue muge sighed, "He's safe here in Maxxor's palace; there was …an incident."

"I'll be right there." Tom stood up, cutting the communication and heading for the transports. Payton and Sarah glancing to each other and silently agreeing that their little argument could wait for another day. They hurried off after him.

"Hey, T-bird, wait up."

"We're going with you"

***8***

Tom barely remembered ever leaving the transport, arriving in Maxxor's palace or running down the halls to the room. He didn't remember if he asked for directions or if he just somehow knew where he was going. All that he remembered was he had to get to that room, to his friend, he had to see for himself that he was ok.

He burst through the door, heart pounding in his chest from all that running suddenly felt like it had gone silent at the sight of the boy in the bed.

"Tom, will you….slow down? …" Sarah gasped as she came in behind him, "It's actually hard to… run in dress you know…"

Payton came heaving behind her, "Dude… I need to lay off the Choco crème puffs….What'd I miss?"

Both of them froze a moment as they saw what Tom was looking at, and both of them suddenly had their second winds, rushing to their friend's side and calling out his name. their actions seemed to snap Tom back from his trance. He blinked moving to do the same, his legs feeling like lead the whole way.

"Kaz? Kaz wake up please." Sarah pleaded.

"Kaz man, what happened to you dude?"

"Kaz…"

"Calm down kids," Someone said calmly, causing the three of them to turn their heads to the door in time to see a fox creature in a green tunic and dark cloak with a white furred face close the door. She looked at them calmly, a gentle smile crossing her muzzle, "Your friend's going to be ok. He just needs a little sleep."

Sarah didn't seem convinced as she stood up like she was having a face-off with someone she didn't like, "Who are you? what did you do to our friend?"

Tom remembered seeing her before, unsure of her name he said the first thing that came to mind, "White face?"

The fox nodded, "Good guess. Tom wasn't it?"

"Wait a minute T-bird, you know her?" Payton asked looking a bit crestfallen, even more so as Tom nodded, "And you didn't tell us about her?"

"Not important right now Payton." Tom said sternly. Payton sighed, going into a rare moment of quiet. movement out of the corner caught his attention as a blue muge came into the light.

"Najerin? What …..What happened to him?"

The aged creature turned to the fox, his arms crossed in front of him, "I believe this is something you'll have to explain….Whitey."

The fox sighed, letting a different kind of smile cross her muzzle as she leaned back against the wall, "Take three…with bonus content….I was tracking up at Glacier plains and after escaping from a temperamental fireball bat woman I ran into your friend….."

Hova: (relaxing in a Jacuzzi near a pizza box and lemonade) Raise your glass if you are proud...summer is here and for most of you that means vacation and relaxation. In my case it means no more cold nights walking home from work. and yes I still have a few night shifts to do (sips Lemonade) Guest today was supposed to relax with me and share some snacks but...

Jazz: (sitting at a picnic table with laptop and open books) There are only so many years away till collage you know. and the things we talked about earlier will be more than useful for my thesis.

Hova: 0_0 I thought your thesis was ghost related. and you've been working on that thing since you got here, why not relax a bit while you can. your only young once you know.

Jazz: (shakes her head) no thank you. I want to get this out of my head while it's still fresh

Hova: -_- Want to at least say something to the readers about your brother?

Jazz: o_o ? what do you mean? he's at the water park with friends. said something about planning a big ghost hunt after all the stuff he did in peril.

Hova: Perim.

Jazz: (shrugs) I don't pay attention to those brain rotting video games of his.

Hova: (turns to readers) for those of you who were curious about what Clockwork did to keep his family from worrying. there's a bone for you. Oh and Special thanks to Color Guard, don't worry too much about getting back to me on the PM ok? and also to Miss 2sexyForMySkirt. your review turned out to be just what I needed when I read it. ^ ^ Happy summer everybody (bites pizza) Hot-ot-ot-ot hot