DANNY PHANTOM: THIS TIME AROUND

DIAMOND GRYPHON

DATE: 1/10/09

DISCLAIMER: How I wish, I wish, I wish I owned Danny. But I don't. *sigh*

Chapter 9

Ms. Fenton had been rather surprised when Sam had dragged Tucker into the study, asking politely to use a computer over his confused protests. She hadn't questioned the request, however, and instead led them down to the basement, where a set of computer screens filled up an entire wall.

Needless to say, Tucker's protests had been cut short and he had started drooling.

"I've died and gone to heaven." He whispered reverently as he lowered himself into the chair and ran his hands over the keyboard and mouse.

"Let's hope not." Sam scowled, but it was half-hearted. Her gaze lingered over the rest of the basement. There was a vault door that led off to a room filled with weaponry. The side of the room across from the computer was filled with counters and test tubes, apparently used as some sort of a lab. But what really caught her attention was the half of the large room that was the furthest from the stairs, which was separated by a reinforced wall of large bulletproof windows. The area beyond had metal panels covering the walls, floor, and ceiling. It was completely barren and pristine, except for the burn marks scattered across the various surfaces.

Ms. Fenton noticed Sam's gaze. "That's the training room. It's used for practicing with ghost weaponry without blowing up the house. The entire basement is actually designed by my parents to be a center for ghost hunters. They apparently didn't understand that I'm quite happy with psychology."

Sam pointed to the numerous burn marks. "Well, someone's been using the room."

"I do like to practice with ghost weaponry occasionally. I don't want to be caught flatfooted during an attack." Ms. Fenton explained before turning her attention to Tucker, who was still admiring the computer. "Besides, Danny is the one who's really been using the room lately. He's been rather obsessed with it, actually."

Sam started at the offhand statement. Danny practiced with ghost weaponry? He hadn't mentioned anything about that. But then again, she thought bitterly, he hadn't bothered to mention that he was leaving the country either.

"So, what exactly did you want me for again?" Tucker finally got over his awe of the machine and spoke up.

Ms. Fenton looked at Sam quizzically. "I'm not really sure . . ."

"We need to find information about a bunch of ghosts called the Ancients. Preferably who they are and why the heck they're so important."

Tucker cracked his knuckles dramatically. "That, I can do. Do you have any more details?"

"I know a couple of names." Sam admitted. "Claustro and Sonadora. And I think there's five ghosts total."

Tucker's fingers flew across the keyboard as screens were pulled up, scanned, and dismissed in short order. "What do you need this for anyway? Some sort of school project?"

"Not exactly." Ms. Fenton sighed. "We have reason to believe that the Ancients have something to do with the latest round of ghost attacks."

"You mean the killer ghosts." Tucker frowned. Two more websites were opened, quickly searched, and closed. Tables of words rolled past on the screen as he brought up a database. "I though you weren't a ghost hunter."

"Not normally, but I'm making an exception for . . . a friend."

Sam glanced at the older woman. Did she really consider Phantom a friend? Or was she just saying that because of Tucker? The more time she spent with Ms. Fenton the less she felt that she knew about this whole situation, especially Phantom. She really wished that people would stop keeping secrets from her. How the heck was she supposed to help when they didn't give her all the information?

"I think I've got something!"Tucker's shout pulled Sam out of her musings as she and Ms. Fenton crowded around the screen. On it was an image of five shadowy figures, followed by what looked like a twenty page essay.

"Wow." Sam eyed the length of what was written as Tucker printed out the webpage. Instead of hovering around the screen, Ms. Fenton went over to the printer to look over the paper copy. "Whoever wrote this had too much free time on their hands."

"It's a thesis written by some college senior." Taking the mouse, Tucker highlighted a name in small font at the bottom of the page. "Someone named Vladimir Masters."

Ms. Fenton gasped. Sam looked over to find the older woman looking rather pale. "Let me guess, you know him?"

It figured that she would have heard of the man; there couldn't be that many ghost-obsessed people in the world. And she was definitely a Fenton, after all.

"You could say that." Ms. Fenton replied cautiously. "My parents went to college with him. They were actually pretty close but . . . he isn't exactly a nice person anymore."

"Can we trust him to know his stuff?"

"Yes." She admitted, skimming over the essay that was still coming out of the printer. "He definitely knows a thing or two about ghosts."

"Then this is exactly what you guys were looking for, so I'm out of here." Tucker stood up out of the chair to leave, but was immediately pushed back in by Sam.

"Not so fast. Now comes the hard part, and having a third brain would probably help."

Tucker groaned, but didn't otherwise protest.

Ms. Fenton turned to Sam. "So what did Phantom say that he needed you to do?"

"Well, apparently Claustro is gone, destroyed somehow. He was the one who should have been sealing away the killer ghosts. We have to find a way to do the sealing without him."

"Um, I'm a little lost." Tucker scratched his head and looked sheepish. "What's going on here?"

The two females ignored him.

"So we have four Ancients and we have to figure out a way to replace the job of the fifth?"

"Sounds about right." Sam glanced back at the computer screen. "Mortan looks like he isn't going to be any help, not if his scythe only extracts a soul or consciousness from its ectoplasm. The other three could probably help though . . ."

"What are you two even talking about? Who's Phantom?"

Ms. Fenton looked thoughtful. "Alright, so we know that Clockwork controls time and Mortan controls death. Sonadora controls dreams. So what does that leave for Faberan?"

Sam scanned the document again. "It says something about molding ectoplasm, so I guess he controls ghost's powers or physical form."

Tucker sighed in frustration. "If you're not going to clue me in on what you're planning, I might as well leave."

"Faberan seems like a good place to start, since he seems to have the most control over ghosts."

Once again, Tucker found himself shoved back into the chair after a failed escape attempt. "Hey!"

"So, what? Have him take away all their powers and let them loose in the Ghost Zone?"

"No, they'd probably just develop their powers all over again. That would defeat the purpose. What if he just molded the ectoplasm into unbreakable chains?"

"No good. Another ghost could probably help them out of it."

Tucker let his head fall against the keyboard. "I give up. I seriously give up."

Wow. I haven't updated in forever. I'm really sorry about that, but by the time I decided to try and write another chapter NaNoWriMo was upon me. I won this year, however, so I'm pleased.

Anyway, I'm chopping off some of the boring or irrelevant chapters so that I can finish this up quicker. I have another couple of fanfics which I promised myself I wouldn't post until one of my two series is finished. One of the new fics is for the Case Closed fandom, by the way. It amazes me how many of DP fans are also fans of CC/DC. It doesn't make any logical sense, but I'm not complaining. I actually want to do research to see what percent of people who write DP also write CC/DC and vice versa. We'll see if I ever get around to that.

Review if you're a fan of Case Closed, or if you just want to say hi, or whatever. Many thanks to my wonderful beta-fish doodlekitt, who now draws me funny pictures of fish and snowglobes on my rough drafts.

-Gryph