Danny cracked open the front door to his house and peered inside. The way he figured, there was no way Mr. Lancer hadn't already called his parents. However, just because he'd called didn't mean the Fentons had answered. They didn't have a phone down in the lab and sometimes they went days without checking the house voicemail, assuming the phone hadn't been gutted for parts again.
His parents were waiting in the entryway. Which, y'know, figures.
"Oh, hi sweetie!"
Or perhaps not.
"H-hi Mom, hi Dad," he replied nervously and opened the door, revealing Sam and Tucker behind him, whom his mother greeted with a little too much emphasis to her usual cheer for everything to be normal.
Danny's eyes flitted around the room for anything potentially dangerous or out of the ordinary. The muffled whirring of a vacuum cleaner drew his attention down the hall, where he spotted his sister in a losing fight with the Fenton Xtractor. Wasn't hard to guess what had happened there, but why? Danny frowned. He considered helping her for exactly one second before deciding Jazz probably stood a better chance against that thing than he did and simply headed for the stairs.
"School was fine, nothing to report," he lied. "We'll be up in my room doing homework and stuff."
A lie which might have been believable if a single one of them had a backpack.
He ignored his parents' gazes as they hurried up the stairs and hoped his friends had the sense to as well. Neither of them had been very keen to come over to his house ever since the Accident and, honestly, he didn't blame them. It wasn't even the proximity to the portal which bothered them, it was his parents. Danny knew exactly how they felt. There was something…unnerving looking into the eyes of people who dedicated their lives to hunting the very creature you'd become.
They felt better once the door to Danny's room was closed.
He slumped face first onto his bed and sighed loudly. He knew without looking that the body that dropped down beside him was Sam's.
"Jeez," he grumbled, "who knew flying for our lives would be so exhausting?"
"Don't forget fighting meat monsters and phasing through walls," Sam added, her voice muffled. There was a rustle and then she said, clearly, "and carrying dead weight."
"Hey!" Tucker protested. "I helped!"
She scoffed. "Yeah, barely! What's with you? Why didn't you change?"
"Because he can't," Danny muttered.
"You can't?!" The bed wobbled as Sam hopped onto her hands and knees. "Since when!?"
"Since the second or third day!" Tucker exclaimed.
Sam let out a long, wordless groan of frustration and smacked something. Probably her forehead.
Tucker sighed, folded his arms, and dropped down into Danny's desk chair.
"Okay, ignoring everything else for a second here, why didn't you tell us?" Sam asked. Danny lifted his head in time to see Tucker shrug wordlessly.
"Tuck, come on." Danny propped himself up on his arms. "Whatever it is, it can't be that bad. We're all struggling here."
"And we're never going to get any better if we don't help each other," Sam added.
Tucker glanced at them, then out the window, and sighed. "'Cause it was the first thing either of you figured out. You remember those first few days. I could barely stay in either form for ten minutes. So it's not like I can't change, it just won't work." His frown deepened into a pout.
"You were going intangible just fine earlier," Danny pointed out. "And the…whatever the other thing you did was. Teleporting?"
Sam sat back on her heels and gawked. "That's what that was?!"
"Apparently."
"Cool."
A small smile tugged at Tucker's lips. "I guess. Be cooler if I could control where I ended up."
"Why, where'd you end up?"
Danny grinned. "Teacher's lounge. Right over the all-steak buffet."
Sam let out a noise that was halfway between a scoff and a laugh and shook her head. "How the hell did you explain that one?"
Now Tucker was really grinning. "Well, nobody saw me appear. They probably think I snuck in and then threw myself at the buffet face first."
"Yeah, that tracks."
"Right?"
"Oh my god," she cackled. "I thought those stains were from the meat monster. Please tell me you destroyed the buffet."
Tucker heaved a sigh. "Such a waste."
"Um, we're kind of off track here," Danny pointed out.
"Oops, sorry," Sam said without an ounce of remorse."Where were we again?"
"Tucker can't transform."
"Oh, right." Her mouth twisted thoughtfully. "Well, what have you tried?"
Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "Just about everything I can think of, honestly. I know my ghost half is there, I can feel it, I just can't… grab it."
"It's not about grabbing it," Danny said.
"Well, then, what do you two do?"
Danny and Sam glanced at each other. It wasn't something easily put to words, even for each other.
"It's like…there's something cold here," Danny began slowly, placing his hand over his heart. "But it's not something I'm always aware of unless I'm looking for it. Like a heartbeat but cold."
"Yeah," Sam agreed, "except it's warm for me. What about you, Tucker?"
Tucker's lips twisted thoughtfully. He looked down at his chest and then closed his eyes. A few moments passed in silence except for the sounds of their breathing and a gentle hum coming from somewhere downstairs.
"It isn't hot or cold," Tucker finally said. "It feels…sharp."
"Sharp?" they echoed and glanced at each other once more. Danny shook his head.
"Yeah." Tucker opened his eyes and his expression fell a little. "Yours aren't?"
"Not…really, no," Sam said slowly.
Danny shook his head. "Not at all."
"Helpful," Tucker muttered. "Maybe that's why I'm having trouble. I'm different than you guys."
"We're all different," Sam pointed out. "But it doesn't seem that difficult. The power's there, waiting to come out. You just have to want it to."
Danny nodded and then froze. Was it really that simple? "Wait a second," he said slowly, "do you think maybe that the reason you can't transform is that you don't really want to?"
Tucker grimaced. Bingo.
"Aw, Tuck." Danny sat up, bringing his legs around so he could sit on the edge of his bed closest to Tucker. "How come?"
Tucker took a deep breath and exhaled a frustrated groan. "See, that's just it! Today, in the kitchen, I was trying to transform! I wanted to help you guys but it wouldn't work!"
"Wanting to help and wanting to go ghost aren't the same thing," Danny pointed out. "I mean, I'm no expert here, but there doesn't seem to be any trick to getting any of our powers to work except wanting them to." He glanced at Sam for confirmation and she nodded. "You managed to teleport and go intangible earlier."
"Yeah, but that was to protect myself." Tucker looked down, dejected. "I guess that's what I really wanted, huh?"
Sam floated off the bed and landed on her knees in front of him. Peering up into his eyes, she gave him one of her rare, genuine smiles. "There's nothing wrong with wanting to protect yourself, y'know. And," she added with a hint of excitement, "if I'm right, that's what this is all about."
"What do you mean?"
"Like you said, those first few days after the accident, you couldn't stop transforming. It didn't matter where we were or what we were doing. You had no control. I'll bet what you really wanted then was to stop transforming altogether. Am I right?"
Danny's eyes widened. Tucker chewed on his lip thoughtfully.
"If that's the case," she went on, "then, in theory, all you have to do is start wanting to transform again and it should work. Eventually."
"Yeah, and then what, Sam? What if I go back to like I was before? I won't be able to leave my room! Never mind actually go to school or anywhere else."
"Well, you can't stay like this," she said firmly and rose to her feet. "Being afraid of yourself definitely isn't healthy. And besides, you never know. I mean, we're all making progress with our powers. I only floated in class once today," she added, chin lifted in pride. "And Danny didn't fall out of his chair. Or through it."
Sam extended both her arms towards Danny as if he were Exhibit A for well-adjusted ghost boys.
Danny decided not to mention what'd happened at breakfast.
"I mean…I'll try," Tucker mumbled.
Sam lowered her arms to her sides. "And we're here for you, though, no matter how long it takes you to figure it out. Right Danny?"
"Absolutely," he agreed. "There's just one small problem: we don't have time to wait for Tucker to get himself straightened out." Tucker's shoulders slumped but Danny pressed on. "There's still a ghost at school and we've got to do something about it, pronto."
Tucker wrinkled his nose. "I mean, do we have to?"
"Yeah, Tuck, we do. What do you think's gonna happen if we try to go back to school tomorrow? The moment she sees us, she's gonna flip out again. People will get hurt, maybe even killed! It'll be chaos! My parents will get involved."
Scowling, Sam leaned against the edge of Danny's desk. "So, what do we do about it? We can barely fight and unless you want me to, I don't know, cook her with my hair, we don't exactly have a lot of options."
Jazz came stomping down the hall, halting their conversation. Danny heard her door rebound off the wall with an impressive thud and slam shut with equal force a moment later.
Danny winced. "I think my parents might have accidentally turned the Xtractor on her."
"Accidentally?" Sam muttered.
"Oh, c'mon, Sam, they wouldn't do it on purpose!"
"Well, they certainly weren't helping her."
"Danny didn't either," Tucker pointed out.
Danny snorted and shook his head. "As the only one in this room with a sister, trust me when I say you cannot possibly understand why I left her there."
Sam's hands clapped together, startling both boys, though not half as bad as the glint in her eye did a second later. "That gives me an idea. Danny, what exactly does that extractor thing do?"
"Uh, if I remember right, it's supposed to suck ectoplasmic entities out of people."
A beat. Tucker looked repulsed. Sam licked her lips. "Does it work?"
"Thankfully, no."
"But some of your parents' inventions do!" She clapped her hands together again. "Tucker, get that list you've been making."
Tucker obeyed, though with some hesitation, and slowly pulled the PDA from his pocket. "Okay…"
Smirking, Danny leaned back on his hands. He knew where this was going.
Casper High was unnaturally dark.
Danny had passed by the school at night before and he knew there were always lights left on in the hallways, but as far as he could tell, there currently wasn't a single light on in the entire building. As if he needed another reason to suspect the Lunch Lady was still in residence.
She'd made it pretty clear before that she considered the Casper High campus her domain now. She didn't seem to mind the presence of humans, fortunately for the students, faculty, and staff who'd been present earlier that day, but how long would that last? Even if the half-ghosts kept their distance, the Lunch Lady was dead and the job vacancy she'd left behind had long since been filled. There was no place for her here and as soon as she realized that, she would undoubtedly get violent. Then the casualties would begin.
They met beneath the football bleachers, hidden from view in case anyone happened to drive by. As per the plan, Danny had snuck out of the house with as much functional Fenton tech as he could carry, which admittedly wasn't much, and they looked even less impressive once he spread them out on the ground for inspection. There was a gun that fired and reeled in a ghost-proof net, an ectogun the size of a shotgun, the (still nonfunctional) Fenton Thermos, and the Fenton Anti-Creep Stick (which was, as far as he could tell, just a bat with the word Fenton on it).
"Was this really everything?" Sam asked with enough disappointment to sink a freighter. "I thought your parents have been making anti-ghost weapons for years!"
"Well, yeah," said Danny, "but they keep most of it locked up in the weapons vault."
"You have a weapons vault?" Sam and Tucker replied in unison.
"Yeah and pretty much everything in there was made before the portal was up and running. None of it's ever been tested. I figured this stuff has a better chance of actually doing what it's supposed to, since it was made after."
Sam pursed her lips, picked up the Anti-Creep stick, and gave him a pointed look. "Danny, this is a regular bat."
"Well, if you don't want it…."
"I didn't say that." She twirled the bat a few times then brought it to rest against her shoulder.
Danny couldn't quite hold off a smirk. Picking up the ectogun and the thermos, he handed them to Tucker. "Take these. Stay out of sight as much as you can and when you get a clear shot, take it."
Tucker nodded seriously. He hooked the gun under his arm and held up the thermos. "Didn't your dad say this thing doesn't work yet?"
"I was hoping maybe you could figure it out."
"Me?!"
"Well, sure. You're the techno geek here, remember?" Danny grinned. "Besides, a fresh pair of eyes might be just what it needs."
Tucker's brow furrowed and he frowned at the thermos but Danny could see the wheels already turning behind his eyes.
"And," Danny went on, picking up the Grappler, "if all else fails, we can catch her in this and haul her back to the portal by force!"
"But Danny, you don't have a weapon," Sam pointed out.
"Don't need one."
"Bull."
"Hey, my mom's a black belt. She's taught me a few things."
The darkness which had permeated the entire school from the outside vanished the instant they entered the building and they became eerily aware of how far the Lunch Lady's influence had stretched in just the few short hours she'd been left unattended. Everything seemed the tiniest bit off, in the same unsettling way as furniture in a familiar room being shifted one inch to the left. The walls a little too tall, the edges of the lockers a little too sharp, the doors spaced a little too far apart. The ever present posters and banners on the walls were distorted, askew. A faint glow seemed to radiate from walls themselves, and the sound of the air moving through the vents could very well be mistaken for a faint moan or wail.
It was, in short, creepy as all hell, and Sam and Danny's ghost senses went off the moment they phased inside.
Tucker's first few footsteps seemed to reverberate forever. Without a word, Danny wrapped his arms around Tucker's chest, and hefted him into the air. Tucker grumbled about the position being undignified but he was quickly hushed by Sam. He allowed himself to be carried down the hall without further complaint.
The halls began to fill with blueish light the closer they drew to the cafeteria. When they rounded the corner and the cafeteria doors came into view, so, too, did the source of the light, almost obscenely bright, filtering through the windows on the door.
"Well," Danny muttered, "looks like we were right. You guys ready?"
Tucker flipped the switch on the ectogun, it powered up with a high-pitched hum, and then he turned invisible. Sam tapped the Anti-Creep stick against her palm and dropped out of visibility as well.
"Remember, should worst come to absolute worst, we call in my parents," Danny whispered then phased through the wall.
The entire cafeteria was glowing. The walls, the floors, all emanating an uncanny blue light. The air around the tables distorted as if they were radiating extreme heat but when Danny approached, he felt nothing. He set Tucker down by the table then floated higher into the air for a better look at their surroundings. The Lunch Lady herself was not present and despite the weird distortions, nothing seemed to have been animated like the ovens earlier.
The clang of metal hitting metal startled Danny so badly he had to slam his hands over his mouth so he wouldn't scream. He whipped around towards the kitchen but he could see nothing through the metal shutters covering the serving window. After a few moments, there came another noise, quieter than the one before. A rattling. Then a drawer closed. Danny lowered his hands, exhaled quietly, and started towards the kitchen. He was aware of Sam floating alongside him about five feet to his left, still completely invisible to his eyes.
He silently phased through the shuttered window and looked around. The stoves were on and going, but not alive (for the moment), and he saw pots of something cooking away on their burners. The Lunch Lady herself was floating at the counter where Danny often glimpsed lunch ladies dishing out fruit into little cups to be served. She was cooking. Just cooking. She had ingredients piled around her that she pulled from and put into the pot she was currently working on. Goulash, probably. Tomorrow would've been goulash day if the menu was as it should be. And she was humming to herself, a lively little tune that completely belied her eerie surroundings.
Danny…paused.
He had never really bought into all the facts his parents claimed to know about ghosts. According to his parents, ghosts were imprinted with instincts and memories from the life of the human they came from. Of course, they said a lot of other things on that topic, some of which Danny never bought into, but maybe, just maybe, they were right about this. How many days and hours had that lady spent in that very position, making that same goulash recipe from memory, humming to herself to pass the time.
It was kind of sad, really.
Giant meat monster, Danny reminded himself. Major damage potential. Will literally kill Sam if given the chance.
Still, it didn't seem right to just fire on her from behind.
Danny could feel Sam hovering just beside him and he threw her what he hoped to be a tempering look. He emerged from the wall and landed silently on the floor near the door. The Lunch Lady still hadn't noticed him.
So, Danny cleared his throat quietly and asked, "Are you making lunch for tomorrow?"
A slight stutter in her rhythm was the only indication the Lunch Lady had heard him but she recovered almost instantaneously and kept working. She did not acknowledge him.
"Goulash, right? Goulash day always comes after meatloaf day." Danny went on, watching her carefully for any sign that she was about to attack. "But it never tastes very good."
The Lunch Lady paused.
"I think it's the cook's fault. A lot of the stuff she makes isn't good. Could I try some of yours?"
And, finally, the ghost turned around and stared at him. She was probably sizing him up, weighing her options, and wondering where the others were. He tried to make himself look as nonthreatening as possible and wished he had pockets to shove his hands into.
"You aren't welcome here, child," she sing-songed after a moment.
Danny shrugged. "I've been a social pariah since the first day of kindergarten. Not being welcome is my default state. Can I try the goulash?"
The Lunch Lady considered him with a tilted head and narrowed eyes. "Where are your friends?"
"Around," he replied with a vague gesture of his hand. A thought flitted through his mind and he grabbed at it. "All that running earlier really took a lot out of us. I'm the strongest. So is that a no on the goulash?"
She said nothing.
"Oh well," he sighed, "I guess I'll never know how good it could be."
"Very well, dear."
He could practically feel Sam's eyes on the back of his head as he followed the Lunch Lady over to the stoves. She grabbed a plastic bowl and a ladle and scooped some out for him. Conjuring a spoon up from…somewhere, she held out both for him and Danny accepted them with a genuine smile. He peered down at the contents and stirred them around with the spoon.
"There's a lot in this," he noted, glancing up. "It isn't just noodles and hamburger."
"It's my recipe," she told him with a hint of pride. "I've always made it exactly this way. Go on, try it."
Danny shrugged once and lifted the spoon to his mouth. He chewed slowly to savor it and… "It's good," he realized aloud.
"No talking with your mouth full."
He finished chewing as contritely as possible, swallowed, then said, "Really good."
The Lunch Lady preened.
"Y'know, you could try and get a job here," he suggested. "I could put in a good word for you."
"Oh, that's very kind of you, sweetie, but I've already got it taken care of."
Not good. "You, uh, you do?"
"Yes, sweetie! Tomorrow morning, when the other lunch lady gets here, I intend to take over her body."
"Wait, what?"
The Lunch Lady looked at him like he'd sprouted a second head. "Like that body you're riding around in."
Danny frowned. "Huh?"
She pointed at him. "Just as you have taken that human's child body, I intend to take the body of the woman in charge around here as my own."
Danny looked down at himself, confused. What was she—oh. Ooooh. His parents had been right! Ghosts could take over living bodies. What had they called it? Possession? He didn't blame her for making that assumption. Hell, he probably would have too in her case.
He shook his head at her. "This is my body."
"And come tomorrow, I'll have my own body, too," Lunch Lady replied simply. Something about her tone caused the hairs on the back of Danny's neck to stand up. Or maybe it was the way the air around him suddenly seemed hotter and thicker, pressing in on him unpleasantly.
Damn. Well, there'd be time later to mourn the delicious lunches that could never be. "B-but what about her? Her life? That's not fair to her!"
"You say with stolen lips."
He pressed his lips together. She wasn't going to believe him even if he told her. "But you'll hurt her," he protested.
"The old bat only has a few years left in her. She'll hardly miss 'em."
She intended to be in it for the long haul, then. She was gonna ride around in that woman's body until she died and then move on to another one until it expired, too. And on and on and—no. No. Not on his watch.
Danny drew himself up to full height and tightened his grip on the bowl. "I can't let you hurt her," he warned.
Though her expression remained pleasant, the edges of her hair had begun to dance with flames and a strange gleam entered her eye. "Now, sweetie, you know students aren't allowed in the kitchen. So, why don't you take your goulash and go eat outside."
Danny took a deep breath, sent a silent prayer to anyone that might be listening, then threw the bowl of goulash into her face.
That did it.
Tucker was crouched out in the cafeteria near the door to the kitchen, wondering what the hell Danny was playing at in there, when there was suddenly a loud crash and his best friend came careening through the wall, hollering at the top of his lungs, and disappeared through the opposite wall.
Tucker leaped through the wall and into action, just in time to see Sam swing the Anti-Creep Stick right into the Lunch Lady's head. A human would've probably died on impact. The Lunch Lady was only sent careening into the nearest countertop. Undeterred, Sam was already bringing the bat back around for another swing.
He hefted the ecto-gun up to his shoulder and took aim.
Sam hit her again, this time in the shoulder, and the Lunch Lady let out an earthshaking bellow of rage. Stew exploded from the pots on the stoves, the ovens burst into flames, cutlery rose into a swirling dangerous torrent.
"You conniving little BRAT!"
The Lunch Lady began to swell in size. Sam, wisely, backed off, but twirled the bat in her hand in anticipation. And Tucker, knowing an opening when he saw one, pulled the trigger.
The ectogun kicked like a fucking mule but the result was a softball-sized glob of green energy blasting the Lunch Lady right in the gut. She screeched and her eyes zeroed in on him, and so did the whirl of cutlery. Tucker dropped his invisibility, figuring there was no point now, and instead focused his efforts on remaining intangible.
Danny came tearing back into the room behind Tucker just as the cutlery came hurtling in their direction and barely managed to avoid getting skewered.
"Change of plan," Danny huffed. "Give me the ecto-gun, you focus on the thermos."
"Got it." He tossed Danny the weapon and then backed through the wall into the cafeteria. Danny shouted something at the Lunch Lady and the ectogun went off, followed by another roar. Tucker unhooked the thermos from his belt and held it up.
He'd had a few thoughts earlier but, really, there wasn't much to go on here. He had no idea how it worked, what it was made from, or what it was supposed to do beyond 'trap ghosts'. Maybe if he had an hour to take it apart—
No. No. Danny and Sam were counting on him. He could figure this out.
Tucker had known Danny, and by extension his parents, since they were in preschool. The elder Fentons may have been kind of nuts but they were brilliant inventors when they put their minds to it. The fact that they lived primarily off of patents they had made when they were younger could attest to that. This 'Fenton Thermos' was functionally sound, he had to believe that, it was just missing something. Something they hadn't accounted for, didn't have access to. But what?
Danny wondered if giving Sam the Anti-Creep Stick had been wise. She was having way too much fun with that thing. For the first minute or so, the Lunch Lady didn't seem to know what to do against a teenager armed with a baseball bat and absolutely thriving. But giving the ghost hell had been the goal, so, objectively, the Anti-Creep Stick had been a good idea. Except now Danny wasn't sure they'd be able to get it away from her when it was over.
But all things considered, he thought the fight was going very well.
Until it wasn't.
More specifically, until the Lunch Lady figured out that the bat was literally all Sam had going for her and started to give chase. She flew close to the smoke detector and the damn thing started screeching and flashing and then the sprinklers had the audacity to kick in and add half a dozen torrents of water into the mix. Sam started swearing up a storm and the Lunch Lady yelled at her for her language and Danny took the opportunity to fire the ecto-gun at her again.
It was, in short, utter pandemonium. Not to mention the sudden added pressure of the imminent arrival of the fire department.
The Lunch Lady snarled at him and went intangible and began sinking into the floor. Danny fired again and the blast hit her right in the chest and knocked her flying. She flung a barrage of knives in his direction and Danny, panicking, held the gun up to shield himself. Some glanced off the sides but he felt three distinct impacts, the force of which shook him. He lowered the gun to assess the damage. Three glowing knives had imbedded themselves in the gun, one in the barrel, one just above the trigger, and the third in the energy core. He pulled the trigger and the gun's only reaction was to become searing hot beneath his hands, letting out a high pitch whine that grew in intensity with every second that passed. Thinking fast, he flung it like a frisbee at the Lunch Lady then retreated to Sam's perch on the industrial-grade vents over the flaming stoves.
The Lunch Lady went intangible long before the gun reached her and didn't even turn to watch as it exploded against the wall.
"This isn't going well," Danny commented.
"Oh, ya think?" Sam snapped. "As fun as this is, I can't really do much damage to her with this thing."
The Lunch Lady grinned at them and lifted her arms into the air. The air around them began to swirl, taking the water with it. Food burst forth from the fridges and cabinets, rose up from the floors and counters, mixing with bowls, plates, trays, and pretty much anything else not bolted down.
"I've had just about enough of you little brats!" She shouted. "You need manners, discipline, respect!"
Danny and Sam gaped at her. What now?! If Sam tried to charge her, she'd get hit with a barrage of the dangerous mix swirling around them. There was no way the Fenton Grappler's net was big enough to hold her when she was nine feet tall and the ecto gun was shot. And the fire alarm, which continued its ear-shattering screeching, warned of the fire department's imminent arrival.
Suddenly, the door to the cafeteria burst open and there was Tucker, leg extended like he'd kicked it open, which he probably had. He dropped his leg and, eyes glowing an unnatural blue, held the uncapped thermos out in front of him. "HEY, UGLY!"
The Lunch Lady rounded on him with a furious growl. She spotted the thermos and screeched, "No! Soup's not on today's menu!"
"Man, screw your menu!"
Tucker squeezed his eyes hut and his entire body began to glow blue. The light passed to the thermos and a beam of pure light shot forth from its mouth. It hit the startled Lunch Lady dead on and she let out an unholy screech as it began to draw her in. She writhed and struggled, her body distorting as she struggled against the pull of the thermos, screaming denials, threats, and vows to return, before her words became inaudible over the whirl of the thermos and the blaring alarms.
She disappeared inside the thermos and Tucker slammed the lid on top. The wind in the room abruptly died as the ghost's connection to the physical world was terminated, the light faded from the walls, the flames in the ovens sputtered out, and everything that had been whirling through the air crashed against the nearest surface with a deafening clatter.
Soaked through with water, goulash, and god-knows-what-else, the three teenagers gawked at each other wordlessly through the gloom pierced only by the painfully bright flashes of the fire alarm.
Tucker found his voice first. "Holy crap it worked!"
The flashing lights outside the cafeteria announced the arrival of the fire trucks and Danny was forced to leave the scattered pieces of the ruined ecto-gun behind.
The teenagers beat a hasty retreat to the rooftops across the street from the school and watched, invisible, as more firetrucks showed up, then police, and Principal Ishiyama herself not long after. Danny lost his transformation not long after the police turned up and Sam's fell away a few minutes later as well. They were too far away to hear anything distinct and there was nothing they could do anyway, so when the news vans began rolling up, they decided it was time to dip.
The incident at Casper High was, predictably, the top story for the morning news. Danny sat on the couch with his parents and sister, slowly munching on cereal, as the reporter on screen cataloged the damage that had been done.
"Police have informed us that they are still working to identify the vandals' point of entry into the school, as all doors windows were locked, and, so far, they have found no signs of forced-entry."
"Jack…" Maddie said slowly. "You don't think…?"
He did think.
Danny forced himself to sit there and chew his cereal while his father took off like a madman towards the lab to get their gear and prayed the remnants of the ecto-gun he'd left behind were untraceable.
