Chapter 8: Mission Impossible
Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or its characters. Original ideas and characters, however, are mine.
"'Thingys'?" Danny repeated. "I thought adolescent slang terms were a thing of the past for you."
"I'm still in touch with my inner teenager," Jazz replied loftily.
Danny did a facepalm. "What next? Your inner twentysomething that doesn't exist yet?"
"I'm working on that," said Jazz. "I repeat, are the Time Medallions metal?"
"It's a metal alloy you don't have in this time period yet, but yes, they're metal," Strike finally answered.
"Magnetic?"
Strike looked surprised, then thoughtful. "I think so."
"Can you get one so we can test it?"
"Easily." Strike tweaked something on her right wristband. From a thin compartment slid a rounded object very familiar to Danny, Sam and Tucker. "We're never without at least one," Strike explained as she tossed it to Jazz, who caught the medallion easily. "You never know when it might come in handy. Well, Clockwork knows, but he's hardly ever in a telling mood. At this point it's just habit for me."
Jazz held a magnet in one hand and the medallion in the other. Nothing happened. She moved them closer together. Still nothing. Finally when they were nearly touching the medallion scooted a fraction of an inch across her palm towards the magnet.
"Not very strong magnetic properties," observed Jazz. "Still, it should be enough."
"Enough for what?" Tucker wanted to know.
"Care to enlighten us?" Danny added.
Jazz smiled.
-0-0-0-
"And we really think Technus will cooperate?" Tucker asked for the thousandth time since the plan had been explained.
"Him double-crossing us is a definite possibility," Jazz reminded him. "We're hoping he'll see it's in his best interest to cooperate until we've got Danny's evil self under permanent control or better yet, neutralized completely. Then he can double-cross us to his ghostly heart's content."
They had been arguing this out for at least an hour and a half and the tension was still escalating. Danny could tell the waiting was getting to everyone. Knowing something bad could happen at any second was starting to wear on even Jazz's usual upbeat attitude. Jack had long since removed himself from the conversation and was chowing down on an enormous sandwich in one corner of the lab. Maddie was tinkering with some device while she listened to the argument with half an ear for new developments. Strike had gone to the Ghost Zone to persuade Technus to help them and bring him back to the lab hidden in an old laptop computer donated for the cause by Tucker. The Wi-Fi device in it was busted, which was the only reason Tucker had consented to its use. That way Technus couldn't escape using Wi-Fi into any of the other lab systems or nearby networks.
Jazz, Tucker and Sam were still arguing the same points of the plan over and over again while Danny tried to keep the peace. After several years of working together normally the four of them got along well, but the stress had turned them all back into the bickering teenagers they'd been at the beginning. He could see Sam in particular was only minutes away from exploding.
Taking her hand in his, he asked, "Anyone mind if Sam and I go for a short walk?"
Everyone swung around to look at him.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Jazz and Maddie said simultaneously.
"I mean, your evil twin could turn up at any minute and we'll need you," Jazz added.
"He is not my twin. That's too gross to even think about," Danny protested. "But we'll be fine. We'll both be wearing our communication devices," he pointed to the earbud in his own ear to illustrate. "You can call us and we'll be back in a flash. You know how fast I can fly."
"And I'll be tricked out to the max," Sam said, fastening on the Specter Deflector as she spoke. She already wore her favorite wrist gun, and carried a Thermos and a more powerful gun.
Maddie eyed them. Danny sent her his most innocent please look. "All right," she agreed. "But no more than fifteen minutes. Strike should be back by then and we need to settle on what everyone's doing."
"Sure, Mom. Thanks!" In a flash Danny was practically dragging Sam upstairs and out the door. In the past, the Specter Deflector would have made this impossible, but the year before they had modified it using technology from Jack Fenton's "Boo-merang" so that Danny could touch anyone wearing the Deflector but it still prevented other ghosts from harming the person wearing the beltlike device.
"Hey, what's the rush?" Sam demanded once they were on the street.
"I thought you could use a break," he admitted.
"Thanks. I was dying to get out of there, even if it is safer." Sam kissed his cheek. "For a big, tough superhero, you're pretty sweet."
"I have my moments."
"Cute." Sam eyed him. "Why else did you want to get out of there?"
"You think I didn't just want to spend some time alone with…OK, you got me. There's actually two things. One, I wanted to check on Mr. Lancer. He's the only part of the equation we haven't taken into account. Don't worry!" he said when she gave him a look. "We'll be invisible the whole way over. I just want to check and make sure Flame-Head hasn't gotten to him first."
Sam thought this over. She took his hand, and Danny made them both invisible."Sounds good. What's the other thing?"
"Plan B."
"There's a Plan B?"
"This is sort of an if-all-else-fails-last-resort kind of Plan B. If getting the medallion off doesn't do the trick or isn't working for some reason, or we get it off and we still can't beat him, we have to keep him contained somehow. If my idea works, he'll at least be less powerful. I think."
He explained. Sam heard him out, but even invisible he could tell she was frowning.
"Danny, are you sure you want to do it? If it backfires, things could get a whole lot worse instead of better."
"I know. I told you this was a last resort."
"I don't really like it. We're on shaky ground with the original plan as it is. I know Jazz really thinks this will work and she finally got Strike convinced there was no other way, but her track record with plans in the past…"
"Nobody else had an idea that could even remotely work," Danny pointed out. "This guy is different than any other ghost in the world, Sam. He knows us, and probably me, better than anybody. He thinks in physical terms as well as on the ghost plane because he remembers being human through Danny Fenton and Vlad Masters. He's probably got a good idea of what any of our usual plans would be. We can't bank on outsmarting him at anything. I figure the only way to beat him is to do something incredibly stupid and obvious and hope he falls for it because he figures nobody would be that dumb."
"Our Plan A does kind of fall into that category. Your so-called 'Plan B' does too."
"He forgot about a lot of my parents' inventions last time. I bet it hasn't even occurred to him we'd use this one. It's sort of a passive thing, if you think about it. He's expecting us to come at him with weapons blazing. It's what he understands."
"And if—when, I guess—the weapons blazing doesn't work, he'll think we're out of ideas. I guess I can see where you're coming from." Sam sighed. "OK. I'll help you set it up. I still think this is a lousy Plan B, but we need all the alternative plans we can get."
"Thanks, Sam. If you come up with a Plan C, I promise to help you set that up too."
"You better." Sam squeezed his hand.
They entered a more crowded area of town and had to keep silent in order not to alert everyone to the fact that there were two invisible people walking among them. Mr. Lancer lived in a quiet neighborhood not too far from Casper High. Danny knew where his house was, but had never actually had a reason to go there until now. The small house appeared surprisingly neat for a bachelor.
Danny led Sam to the door, both still invisible, and knocked.
The door popped open after a few minutes and Mr. Lancer's bald head appeared. He looked up and down in puzzlement when he saw no one there.
"Pssst, Mr. Lancer!" Danny hissed. "It's Danny Phantom and Sam Manson. We need to talk to you, but it's important no one knows we're here. Just act natural."
Mr. Lancer looked more puzzled than ever, but he shrugged and nodded ever so slightly. Danny and Sam walked past him and into a small, sparse living room that was dominated by an enormous widescreen TV hung on one wall. Mr. Lancer turned it on, but kept the volume very low.
"That should muffle anything you have to say," he said, settling onto his comfortable-looking couch and keeping his eyes on the screen. "Like it? It's new. I bought it so I could watch the Discovery Channel in HD."
"The Discovery Channel?" Sam repeated.
"And the Book Channel," their teacher said proudly. "I'm getting with the times. Staying…how do you kids say it? Hip. Cool."
"Riiiight," answered Danny. "That falls under 'too much information.'"
"So if you didn't come to watch Deadliest Catch reruns, what is so important you had to interrupt me?"
"Well…"
With that promising start, Danny launched into the explanation. Mr. Lancer did a credible job of remaining expressionless, though he winced when Danny related who his evil self's targets likely were.
When the story was over, Mr. Lancer sighed. Surprisingly, he said, "Jekyll and Hyde, I've been expecting this."
"You knew another version of Danny was going to escape from the future to try to kill us all? Why didn't you warn us?" Sam demanded.
Mr. Lancer sighed again, this time with frustration. "Don't be ridiculous, Miss Manson. Of course I had no idea this specific set of circumstances would occur. That seems to be your friend Clockwork's specialty. What I meant was, I wondered when I found out about Mr. Fenton's other identity if we'd placed too much on the shoulders of someone so young."
"I'm not sure what you mean, Mr. Lancer. My other self didn't turn evil because he was under too much pressure to be good."
"Didn't he?" Mr. Lancer replied. "From what you've said, that appears to be the case."
"Huh?" said Danny and Sam at the same time.
"He—you—cheated on the C.A.T. test in that other reality, Mr. Fenton. In my long experience as an educator, most kids don't cheat to get some sort of sadistic pleasure out of it or even because they really want to. They cheat because they think they have no chance of doing well legitimately. In your case, because you'd been spending the time most high schoolers spend on homework protecting people instead. The balance between being selfish and being selfless is a delicate one, Daniel. Very few teenagers, actually, very few people can walk the line you have without tipping." He paused to let this sink in. "You could have easily turned out differently, Danny Phantom. Very easily."
"But—"
"Why was I expecting it?" Mr. Lancer smiled very faintly. "Daniel, think back to who you were in ninth grade. You hadn't made the choice to be selfless—not really. You weren't ready. You were bound to make mistakes. I've always wondered when one of those mistakes would come back to haunt us." He chuckled. "Haunt—get it—never mind. Anyway, my point is even though I'm shocked there's an evil version of you running around out for blood, in another way I'm not really surprised."
Danny considered this. Mr. Lancer had gone too deep for him with some of the stuff he'd said—he'd known the man had a philosophical side but had never had it turned on him. "I get it—I think," he admitted after a moment. "I haven't always made the right choices about what to do with my powers. And there have always been consequences. But still, Mr. Lancer, this is a little extreme. Being hunted down by an evil version of myself hardly seems like a natural consequence from a mistake I didn't even make."
"I agree. This isn't exactly the consequence I imagined either." He paused to stare vacantly at the TV, still trying to keep up the charade that they weren't there. "What now?"
"Now, well…that's a tricky question. The rest of us are at FentonWorks getting ready for when he inevitably shows up. As long as you stay away from there, I thought I'd leave what to do up to you."
"Ah, the proverbial sitting duck," Mr. Lancer said. "I've never imagined what it would be like to be one. And I find I don't like the experience. I'll lay low for awhile and quietly plan graduation from there."
"Graduation!" Danny slapped a hand to his face.
"I forgot too," Sam admitted. "It's been the last thing on my mind."
"Loathe as I am to say it, this is more important. Try to make it, both of you, but if you can't then we'll just skip the class speaker. Your diplomas can be mailed to you, worst-case scenario."
"Worst-case scenario, we won't need them," Sam muttered.
"Positive thoughts," Danny hissed back.
"Thanks for coming to warn me," Mr. Lancer said, ignoring this exchange. "It's interesting being part of your adventures this one last time, even if it's just trying not to get killed by yet another psychotic ghost. Try to make it to graduation—it's an important rite of passage. And we still want to hear your speech."
"Sure," Danny grumbled.