A/N: I'm sure you guys have noticed, but this format:
Danny - bois so I'm actually thinking about vegetarianism whoda thunk
Is a text. Sorry I didn't explain that earlier! :I
As Team Phantom expected, Autumn simply vanished. They did some searches around Amity during patrols, but before they knew it, Wednesday was upon them and Danny was set to leave that evening. It was appearing like they really were going to be taking Vlad's advice whether they wanted to or not.
Or, so they thought.
Tucker - hey guys, found some stuff out, meet after school my place
Danny - I have to leave at 6 but sure
Sam - What's it about?
Tucker - details details, dnt worry :)
Sam - …
TTTTTTTTTTTT
"You're just lucky I could get Jazz to pack for me." Danny, Tucker, and Sam land onto Tucker's back steps, the latter two rubbing their arms to dispel the irritating tingling that came with intangibility. Tucker doesn't even bother removing his coat after heading inside, running up the steps and into his room with some sort of purpose that he continues to keep his lips sealed about.
"Come on, we don't have a lot of time!"
Sam and Danny exchange a glance and shrug, jogging upstairs to catch up to Tucker.
"If it was that important, why didn't you tell us at school?" Danny asks, pushing open the door to his bedroom. Tucker is already seated at his computer, typing away at… something. They never could understand his ramblings about computer code.
"I couldn't just do this with my PDA or my phone, and bringing the laptop is annoying. It took me a few days too, I think the school got a new security director."
"The school?" Sam comes closer and shifts her gaze between the multiple monitors, unsure of which one to look at. He was opening folders and entering in passwords with one, glancing down at a myriad of sticky notes attached to another, and one had images opening up within a third. Danny just looked at the setup and wondered how much it cost.
"I was looking for schedules, but I dug a little deeper than I expected and… Here-" he opens up a PDF in the leftmost monitor, scrolling down a ways and highlighting a chunk of text.
Danny reads it aloud. "Viipuri, Autumn Lei. Enrollment records?" He scans the rest of the table, reading over the information they've already gained from Vlad. "We already knew all of this, it's not-" His eyes cross a line that he doubles back to reread. "3125 South State Ave… that's her address." He points out the line and Tucker nods, looking up at his friend expectantly.
"Yeah, I figured if we hurry we can head over there before you had to leave, we might be able to find something out."
Danny committed the address to memory and attempted to map out where it was in Elmerton in his head. If he was right, he could make it there and back in 20 minutes tops. He almost went ghost right that second and took off in that direction, but he hesitated. What was he looking for? More proof of what they already know? Did he want to invade into this girl's privacy even more than they already had? It's easy to justify it as right given the circumstances, but it still felt… wrong.
Danny was itching to do something, but the lack of purpose combined with Vlad's warning stopped him.
"I don't know- what… would we even expect to find?"
Sam shakes her head. "I've got the same idea. As much as we want to get up and take action…" she trails off, thinking.
"We can always figure out if the place is actually being used, or maybe if Autumn herself is okay. I mean there is a chance he jumped bodies."
"I can see it being worth a look," Sam says. "but as much as I hate to say it, Vlad's probably right. If we go in there and get in a fight it could be bad, especially since we have no idea who or what might be there."
Danny glances at her and chuckles. "Never thought I'd hear you say that Vlad's right."
"Don't get used to it, I'm still convinced he's scheming something."
That was… fair. He still rolls his eyes.
Tucker hums. "If the ghost did want to keep Autumn as their captor, they might find a new apartment. It'll get an awful lot harder to find them then."
Danny sits and contemplates this. Both of them were right. (of course they were) There was a risk of going, and there was a risk of not going. Stay safe and lose a possible lead, or run headlong into a dangerous trap?
Dang did he hate these decisions. He hated it when he had time to weigh the options, calculate the risks, think of the possible outcomes, contingencies. It was easier under pressure. Easier for his gut to take over and force a decision- he didn't have to think and worry, he just took action. Right now his gut was all over the place, choosing one option and then flopping to the other once he really thought about it. He paces around the room as he thinks.
Jeez, it really did look like combat was his only strong point. That's depressing. You'd think the son of two world-reknown scientists would be better at this whole critical thinking thing. But alas, a decision still had to be made. Danny worried his lip as he made his choice, knowing his friends weren't going to like it.
"Alright, I'm going. Can't stand waiting like this." He stops his pacing and drops his backpack to the ground.
"We're coming with you." Sam shrugs her own backpack on tighter. Danny shakes his head.
"No, I'm going in as quietly as possible. Invisible and intangible." He puts a Fenton Phone in his ear. "I'll have you guys on comms, but only speak if I speak first."
"Why can't we go with?" Sam argues. "If something does go down then we can be there to back you up."
"Because I don't need to breathe, I don't have a heartbeat, I don't make sound." He backs to the other side of the room and changes into Phantom. "If there's anyone there then I'll fly out as quickly as possible, but I can't-" He can feel his core buzzing with anticipation. "I can't let the chance to do something slide by."
"Bring your phone. Cell phone." Tucker turns back to his computer. "If something happens then we'll know your location." He pulls out a Fenton Phone and puts it in his ear. "Hopefully that won't need to happen, but it's better to be safe than sorry."
Sam grumbles and turns away. "I still don't think going alone is a good idea, but… I know you're right."
Danny smiles fondly at his two friends and then checks the time.
4:00 pm. He had about an hour before his parents were going to start complaining about him being gone, and after that Jazz can only keep them from at bay for so long. Not exactly limited time, but he didn't want to push it more than he needed to.
"I'll be back soon, don't worry." He clips both his phone and Thermos on their predetermined spots on his suit and floats up and through Tucker's ceiling, taking off in the direction of Elmerton.
After a few moments, Danny hears his earpiece crackle to life, a second comm jumping into the channel. "Phantom, do you copy?"
"Loud and clear dude. Hey, have there been any mentions of ghost attacks in that area in the past week?"
"Um, near your destination? Hang on." A pause. "No, it doesn't look like it."
"Interesting. It doesn't seem like the ghost is very active. You can add that onto our list of 'pointless observations' if you want." He rolls his eyes. There seems to be a high number of elements about this ghost that they just can't seem to connect together. He'll have to go over all of the details next week again, probably with Vlad.
A laugh on the other line. "Will do."
As Danny flies towards the street the house is on, he watches the skyline shift dramatically. He glides over Amity's business district, weaving between the skyscrapers and looking at his ghostly reflection in the glass. He watches the traffic thin as that same scene is left behind him, following the interstate towards Elmerton through Amity's northern suburbs. He frowns as the bright, large, clean houses slowly shrink in size and become more and more rundown, until a busy multilane road littered with dirty gas stations and predatory loan firms marks a sharp divide in the communities.
He pauses over that road, scanning the addresses and turning west. The homes gradually become replaced with apartment buildings, and Danny slows and descends to find the right one. He fades from visibility and halts over her building, the largest one on the block with a sparse parking lot behind it. A quick observation shows overflowing trash bins, broken down window AC units, and a number of cracked or broken windows. Danny furrows his brow at the sight. Perhaps he could extend his patrol into Elmerton with his newfound free time.
"3125 South State Ave?"
"That's it. You find it?"
Danny nods, despite nobody there to see him. "Yeah, heading into her apartment now. Don't say anything. I have no idea who's there, but I'll yell if anything happens."
"Okay, be careful dude. Sam says the same."
"Thanks guys. Call you in a few." Danny turns his communicator down to the lowest volume and heads inside, not taking so much as a breath to reveal his presence.
Apartment 23… probably second floor.
He meanders through a hallway that clearly hasn't been cleaned in a while and stops in front of her door, noticing that it really isn't unlike any of the others throughout the building. For some reason that's… not what he expected.
Jeez Phantom, it's not like the dang door is gonna scream 'Hey look, a ghost lives here!' or something. He rolls his eyes and floats through the thin barrier.
The inside of the apartment is closer to his expectations. As soon as he enters he's in the kitchen, which looks to be… the hallway of the entire apartment. Immediately to his right was a bathroom with a small shower, and then the next room, a bedroom. At the end of the hallway, there's a somewhat open room that has a couch and a small table, so probably the living room. He doesn't imagine that the space extends any farther than what he can see, so he decides to check out the bathroom first.
He floats in and his first observation is that it's small. Really small. Too small to actually have anything incriminating in it. He takes a quick look around, the only thing out of the ordinary is a crack running through the mirror from one of its bolts. He sticks his head through the shower curtain and reads the names of the off-brand soaps, and also notices that the shower's been used, probably in the past few hours.
Someone lives here, that's for sure. He pulls his head out through the curtain and then phases through the wall to the bedroom.
Similarly small, but it at least has some semblance of personality in it. Deep red and purple curtains cover what Danny thinks to be a closet, and a dresser peeks out from behind them. A few books are piled in the corner of the room, and a lamp sits on the floor next to a mattress with a few miscellaneous blankets on top of it. He looks around, taking note that the apartment is actually surprisingly clean. For some reason he expected the floors to be strewn with laundry, the bed to be unmade, and the kitchen to be a mess, but a glance back out into the hallway disproves all of those ideas. The only thing that could be called messy is the pile of books, but even they have a certain charm to them.
Is this… do I have the right place?
He takes a closer look at the clothes in the closet and the books on the floor, noticing that they bear a striking resemblance to Sam's dark yet feminine style- there even seems to be a few Skulk n' Lurk rental tags across their bindings.
Skulk n' Lurk huh, this probably is the place then.
He crouches down and looks at the titles of the books, taking note of them to relay to Sam. He actually recognizes a few of them, one or two written by Freakshow on old harmless legends, a few on Greek and Roman mythology, one or two on old ghost lore and theories. He smiles, recalling the first time he read those same stories in search of answers about his own existence.
He moves further down the stack, and his eyes widen when he sees one that has a title written in ghostspeak.
This- He looks at the title and curses at the worn spine, he can tell that it's clearly ghostspeak, as fragmented as the symbols are, but the cracked leather and rental tag obstruct the majority of the meaning. This could be something.
Danny debates just taking the book and to hell with the consequences, but he figures it might be better to keep the fact that he knows the location of Autumn's apartment a secret.
He stands up and looks around, not noticing any other incriminating items readily available. He takes a quick look through the closet and, after not finding anything else, phases through the wall to the living room.
He scans the room and moves to the one window the entire apartment has. He looks out the broken shades to see a railroad track, a dive bar, and a pizza joint. The ground rumbles and he can hear a distant whistle signifying an oncoming train. Danny sighs at the fact that she has to live in these conditions, especially alone after the tragedies she's been through. She probably doesn't get much sleep either.
A shifting in the back corner of the room causes his head to snap towards the noise. A hand goes to his thermos as he silently floats over to the source. At the opposite corner of the room, a large blue blanket is heaped up, with some moving mass beneath it. He edges closer to the being, remaining as soundless as possible to not give away his presence.
He watches the blanket slide back some, a dark brown lock of hair spilling along the floor. Focusing on the energy in the room, he can't seem to feel the same ectosignature that he did in the school, and slowly approaches.
He's only a foot away from her at this point. He watches the blanket rise and fall with her steady breathing and bites his lip in contemplation.
They… she's alone. He looks around and reaches his hand out to the girl, but he stops less than an inch away from touching her. Close enough where any conscious human could easily feel the ghostly chill he gives off.
But they've avoided my detection before.
He could take her away from here, whisk her away to Fentonworks and prevent her from ever coming in contact with that ghost again. It would probably put the breaks on anything that's being planned from ever coming to fruition. It could stop this entire thing.
But she might not be alone. Even a weak ghost could feel a core as powerful as his hovering this close. They could be dormant- yet still watching. A coiled cobra, waiting for the perfect chance to strike. An opportunist.
And he'd be bringing them right to his family, right to his friends.
He feels a weak pulse from his core, a reminder of his inability to be of any real help if things went south. He was already pushing his luck by being here, going against Vlad's advice, Sam's warning. He flicks his eyes towards her bedroom. There could even be a chance that she wants this ghost around, based on the books she has in her bedroom. While her reading choices could have been coincidental, there was no doubt that those were a result of ghost research, the ghostspeak one especially. Detaining ghosts is one thing, kidnapping a teenager? Phantom's critics would have a field day with that one.
Although… she called out to him. Pleaded for Phantom to help her.
Which allowed them to get away. A trick.
He could be using her.
Danny grabs his head, frustrated about another decision- this one riskier than the one before it. He drags his hands down his face and closes his eyes, completely at a loss as to what to do.
No, you know what to do. It's just the harder decision.
He drops his hands to his side and takes a breath, the first one he's taken since he's been here. He looks around at the empty apartment one last time, and then rises up and through the ceiling.
He doesn't look back.
A/N: So that apartment is one that I used to live in when I was a kid, there were rough times for our family, so I'm pretty familiar with low-income housing and not-so-safe suburbs. And yes, the kitchen really was the hallway. If you tried to open the oven the door would bang against the opposite wall.
I always had fun walking along the train tracks though. And we had a balcony!
She doesn't though. :(