A/N: I'm still alive! Here's an update for yall. Happy Valentines Day.

Making our way back through the football portal into Dad's lab, I finally let out the rage that had been building since we left.

"I thought you said this Clockway would have the glove." I snarled, turning on Danny.

"It's Clockwork and it's a gauntlet." He spat, green eyes narrowing. "And I thought he did. That's where it was supposed to be. But clearly he felt that it, and the gems that power it, needed to be seperate and strewn across the universe." He transformed back into Fenton, his icy blue eyes fading from angry and into concern.

"The real question is, what do we do now?" Sam whispered, looking distraught. "I like gloom and doom as much as the next goth, but the destruction of our worlds isn't something I'm ready to see."

We stood in silence for a bit, before I looked up, an idea striking me. "What about Showenhauser? Wasn't he the one in charge of it in Amity? Would he know anything that would help us?"

Danny stared at me, jaw hanging. "Er… yeah he was. But he's currently locked up in a GIW facility, and I doubt he'd be willing to help us anyway."

"Yeah, considering you locked him in there. Good guess, Clueless." Sam snorted, steepling her fingers as she thought. Danny made a face at her, running a hand through his hair.

"Yeah, but his freedom from the torture-happy agency might be worth some information. Let's see where he is in the facility." Tucker sat down at the massive computer in the lab, plugging in what even I could recognize as binary. The binary faded away as a black and white screen flickered into existence, and with a few searches, digital displays of the gauntlet filled the screen.

"Looks like the gems have a tracking system to locate each other-"

Danny grimaced, moving to stand behind Tucker. "Would've been nice to know last time. Where are you getting this information, anyway?"

"Honestly, Danny, if I don't hack into the GIW database once a day, I'll eat my beret."

Tucker scrolled through the GIW site, pausing as an employee ID card rolled across the screen. Tucker's lips thinned, displeasure casting shadows over his face. "Looks like Damion Grey is in charge of the Sector we'll need to get into to access Showenhauser."

"No. Absolutely not." Danny's voice was stiff and pained, and I watched his knuckles turn white as he gripped the chair Tucker sat in, the metal framing warping under his fingers.

"I've already destroyed her life one too many times. We just formed that truce over Dani a few weeks ago!"

"There's another Danny?" My question went ignored for a time as Danny and Tucker argued over whether or not to involve Valerie. Sam finally answered, her voice flat as she watched the two boys.

"Yeah. Your dad cloned Danny two years ago but something went wrong and the clone turned out to be a girl of twelve instead of a boy of fifteen. She travels over the world and the ghost zone these days. Valerie found out about her being a halfa a couple months ago and she and Danny reached some sort of 'no fire' agreement. He and Dani consider each other siblings or cousins, whichever is more convenient."

"Why is Valerie a part of this at all?", I asked, just as Danny slammed his hand down on the control keyboard.

"No, Tuck. I'll be damned if I-"

"Perhaps this will help, Master Dash?"

Finley's voice startled all of us, and Sam swung around, activating the bazooka she still kept strapped to her person. "One more step. Take one more step and we'll find out what this does to humans."

The butler raised a brow, his fingers tightening on some rolled up parchments. "Schematics to the Facility, Sir. You could always go underground. Bypass the need for an inside man entirely."

He tossed the papers to me, and I spread them out on an empty table, narrowing my gaze. "Blueprints?"

"Start talking. Why do you just so happen to--"

I moved to block Sam, my old tactics as a quarterback coming in handy as I stood between him and the Goth. "Lay off him, Sam. He's my servant. If anybody is going to question him, it'll be me."

Turning to him, I crossed my arms. "Answer the question. How'd you get these? How did you know we were down here?"

Finley didn't speak, instead shuddering violently, and suddenly the room dropped several degrees. Danny choked on his own breath, and I couldn't help but feel the peach fuzz on the back of my neck stand up.

"Mister Masters isn't the only ghost in the manor, Sir." He paused, and slowly an aura began to shine around him. Floating to the blueprints, he unrolled them again, placing a finger on an area.

"Containment centers should be above the second basement level."

I didn't know what to say, but I couldn't help but shake my head. "No. I'm not trusting anything you say until you actually answer my questions."

Finley sighed, leveling a stare in my direction. "I, and the others, are tied into Vlad Plasmius' powers. He made this his haunt years ago, and when he did, some ghosts sought out the source of power we felt emanating from the area. He chose a select few of us to serve him. We were to bond ourselves to his land and haunt -to his ghost powers themselves. It ensured we couldn't act against him, unless it was a threat to our very core.

In return we benefited from the ambient ectoplasm that radiates from the very foundation of the manor. Tying ourselves to his powers also provides a protection from the Suits in White. It covers our own signature, and endures only his aura is detected…as long as he doesn't stray too much."

"The others are…why didn't you tell me?"

Finley laughed, and the way it bounced through the room with an otherworldly, metallic twang set my teeth on edge. "We were under his order, first and foremost. Secondly, we all respect him here. We weren't about to do something that would get us a one way ticket to either the ghost zone or extinction."

Ticking his fingers off, he stared for a moment as he flicked out a third finger. "Third, something to know is that ghosts have different levels of obsession. We all have one, no doubt about it. But it is different for each of us, regarding how much it runs our lives, and the general belief is the amount of obsession is random. It doesn't seem to be driven by what you did in life, or what caused your death -if you had one.

I tell you this because all of us are getting our obsessions met in some way. And for some, that isn't an easy task in the ghost zone. You didn't know, he was happy, you were happy. Why would we bother to ruin it?"

"And yet, you're ruining it now." Danny pointed out. I had long since sat down on the floor with my head in my hands, warding off a headache. Finley shrugged, and again his energy surged through the room with a bitter tang.

"He's on a mission that's impossible, right? I've worked under him for years, I am well aware of his stubbornness. Which means I'm aware that he could leave for years to find this gauntlet. He trusts us enough to know we would take care of Dash and his sister, and has camera surveillance to back up that trust.

The less he's here, the less we're able to hide and feed off his ectoplasm. I'm protecting my own self interest, honestly."

"Can you tie back into his powers, or whatever? It's giving me a headache."

No sooner had I spoken than the extra energy that had sizzled around me dissipated. Since he'd dropped his aura out it had been almost bone jarring to be in the lab between him and Danny, but at least I now knew what it was that had always set Danny apart at Casper High. Something in me could feel the energy. But then why couldn't I feel Dad's?

"Even here, Vlad masked his powers heavily. As a halfa, he kept his powers at something like 20 percent what they were capable of. It's why he doesn't trigger a sense like Phantom possesses. He uses a different higher energy sphere, as well. This means his powers burn more of that excess energy that usually would still linger around him in the air." I groaned at my butler's response to my unasked question and Finley bowed. "Part of my powers are mind reading. My obsession happens to tie into anticipation of the needs of others, so it tends to work in my favor."

I turned my attention to Sam, who was studying the schematics as though they were a part of our final exam. "Alright, listen. Even if we go under the GIW Facility, what's to stop them from capturing us then?" Her question was a good one, and I looked to my butler for the answer.

"The last information Master Vlad was presented with stated that the facility's ghost detection only spanned so far underground. If you can phase through the ground for long enough, you should be able to access the containment easily enough."

I rubbed my jaw, thinking. "Okay, so we go. But… I still have arrangements to make. If it's as hidden as you think it is, what does it matter if it waits a few days? Dad won't find it."

Danny hesitated but slowly nodded., despite the vocal objections of Sam and Tucker. "The world is at stake but a few days must not make much of a difference. It'll give us time to work out a plan."