"Danny, you're flying too close to Jake! Move over a foot! Randy, hasten that footwork! Mind your scarf! Jake, watch out for that-" BANG!"-hoop..."
Sam had been criticizing practice for the last half hour. All three had been flying (or jumping) through hoops, shooting projectiles like fire or ectoblasts, and avoiding attacks in the lab while trying to sync movement if possible or necessary to each other's safety. They had all stopped when Jake had crashed into a hoop. The other two boys went to his aid and changed back to normal. Jake transformed back into his human form, grunted, sat up, and grasped his head. Randy turned his head to Sam, who was standing a few feet away, arms crossed.
"Sam, can we please stop? I'm so tired..." he whined.
Sam shrugged, feeling a rare mercy. "Fine, take a break. Howard!"
As Trixie and Spud headed off to Jake, Danny and Randy came forward. Howard jumped and gave a frightened look at Sam. "Yes?"
"It's come to my attention that you don't know how to utilize whatever magic Trixie and Spud sometimes are given to use or wrist-rays or other means of attack. We're gonna change that today."
Howard backed up. "Hold on now, I don't have that freaky magic stuff they do and I don't have those things you and Tucker have. I tend to just improvise with what I have at the time, like cinderblocks. I don't need any further training." he protested, already not liking where this was going. Randy snickered, and Howard glared at him and punched him in the arm. "Shut up, Cunningham."
"Oh, this is gonna be comedy gold..." Randy stated, rubbing his arm. "You just do your best, Howard."
"Screw you." Howard grumbled. Sam pulled what looked like lipstick from her pocket and tossed it to Randy's friend, who eyed it in confusion. "Um, what is this? Lipstick? Do I look like a girl?"
"What? Green's a good color on you, Howard." Randy said as Howard opened the tube. Howard finally just ignored him and looked at Sam and Tucker. Tucker smiled.
"No, it's a pocket ray. You can shoot it at stuff. It's also easy and convenient to use and hide. The wrist rays we'll show you later; in my opinion it's actually easier to master using to tube than it is the wrist ray." he explained. He smiled as Danny took his spot beside him. "Good job today, dude."
"Thanks, Tuck. Anyways, Tucker and Sam are right. You should practice with it."
"I don't understand why, though," Howard muttered, "I don't fight ghosts or magical things or really fight much. Sometimes I help Randy out, but I make do."
"And what if you're unarmed? Maybe you're in a tight situation with no cinderblocks or other means of attack?" Sam inquired, crossing her arms. "You never know when your friend is going to be in trouble. When he is, as a friend, ally, and keeper of his secret, it's your job to save him and back him up. Tucker!"
Tucker clicked a button on his PDA and from the wall came out practice targets, burned and singed from previous use. Randy stared in awe. "That's so bruce! You can take out this stuff with your PDA?"
"Yeah. I hooked it up so I can access a lot of this stuff with a single push of a button. Maybe I ought to show you how to use the lipstick." He put the PDA away and pulled out his own tube of what looked like lipstick. He opened it and pointed it at one of the targets and pressed a tiny button on it. It blasted and hit the center perfectly, leaving Randy and Howard gaping in awe. Tucker blew on the smoke coming out, twirled it, and put his away. "Sam and I have had a lot of practice. With some you can do that, too. Give it a try."
"Okay..." Howard nervously stood about ten feet away from the first target. He looked to Randy for support. His best friend grinned.
"You got this, Howard. You can do this."
"I do. I do got this..." Howard said, sounding a little unsure of himself. He held out the stick, arm shaking. Sam frowned.
"No, no, steady your hand and arm. If you're shaking you can end up hitting an ally instead of the villain or missing." Sam approached. "Randy, why don't you steady your friend's arm for him so he doesn't take someone's eye out?"
"Okay." Randy held onto Howard's arm and steadied it. "Fire!"
Howard pressed the button and, surprised by the impact, fell down, knocking Randy down with him. The blast bounced off the walls and rebounded off the floor, and flew towards Jake, Trixie, and Spud, who were all calmly ignoring the situation and chatting. They didn't even notice the little beam of energy until it hit Jake's rump.
His eyes widened and he yelped in pain, held his burnt bottom, and fell over to the floor. Trixie and Spud immediately knelt down to help him, Sam, Tucker, and Danny all cringed, and Randy was trying hard not to laugh. He was biting his lip and shaking, eyes alight with the laughter he held inside. Howard's face had gone red and he frowned. When Jake glared at him, he backed up and looked away.
"I am so sorry, dragon dude, I didn't mean to hit you! I swear!" he threw his hands up. "I just, um...missed the target."
Finally Randy's attempts to hold in his laughter failed and he began laughing so hard he was crying and couldn't make a sound. "Help me, I..." He struggled to talk, "I can't..." Breath was short. "I can't breathe!" He threw his fist at the ground and started pounding and then flipped over and clapped his hands together like a seal. Howard kicked him.
"Dude, stop, it's not that funny!" Howard seemed quite frightened of Jake's unimpressed glare, pupils slit like a reptile's. "Please don't turn into a dragon and kill me!" he whispered to himself so quickly and low that it was an inaudible statement. Trixie sighed.
"Jakey, it was just an accident. He didn't mean to hit you."
"Yeah, just let it go." Spud said. Jake finally relaxed and exhaled.
"It's okay. I forgive you, Howard." He ran a hand through his hair. "I've just been on edge because of those stupid...freaky...things! I was up last night at two in the morning chasing ten of them around because they destroyed at least ten thousand dollars worth of property in ten minutes. That and they broke some poor dude's arm. It was the first time they attacked New York City."
"I know how you feel," Danny said with a yawn, "I woke last night at three in the morning because I heard multiple car alarms go off. Little monsters destroyed multiple cars and destroyed some windows and attacked a couple walking home."
"I also woke up early. At one a.m." Randy stated, finally having stopped laughing, "Broke my teacher's car and actually destroyed the gym at my school. They're more than just a nuisance now, they're getting worse by the day and are coming more and more often."
Sam, Tucker, Trixie, Spud, and Howard finally realized how exhausted exactly the Secret Trio was. Howard frowned and put a hand on Randy's shoulder and looked at all of them. "I'm sorry to hear that. Listen, I'll try extra hard to master that ghost ray so we can kick ghost butt sooner. Right n-"
A puff of blue air came out of Danny's mouth. Those not accustomed to it gave him a funny look. "Are you cold?" Randy asked.
"It's ain't cold in here." Trixie pointed out. Spud shrugged.
"I don't know, it's kinda chilly, but, like, not that bad."
"No, it's not because I'm cold," Danny explained. "that happens when a ghost is near. Goin' Ghost!" He transformed and floated up. "I'll be right back. Got some butt to kick."
"I'll come with." Randy pulled on the Ninja mask and with a flurry of ribbons he was shrouded in the Ninja suit. "Use a hand?"
"Sure."
"I can help. Dragon up!" Jake shouted as he changed himself into a dragon. "I can fight and keep from being seen. Let's go!"
As it turned out, it was a group of about twenty imps that had made Danny's ghost sense go off. They had already destroyed public and private property, knocking over lampposts and toppling cars over. At least five were attacking and biting the Fentonworks sign. Danny phased through the roof and glared at them.
"Hey, uglies! Mind stopping what you're doing?"
Their attention turned to him and they all hissed and flew at him. Danny zapped one off the building, making it fade away into what seemed like nothingness, as all of them did upon being defeated. No body to search for clues. The other four went after and chased Danny. The alarmed ghost boy flew to pull them away from his home, and they were quite literally on his ghost tail. A flurry of fire came from a nearby alleyway, managing to set two on fire and make them fade away.
He'd have to thank Jake later; he was still being chased by two. Finally he stopped, thinking to try freezing them. His hands and eyes glowed a blue, and he got one and froze it, dropping it to the ground and leaving broken ice shards behind. The only one left latched onto his arm. Danny screamed and tried to shake it violently to buck it off.
The imp resisted and bit down on his arm, allowing green and red blood to flow out. He hissed in pain, eyes closed and wincing. Danny pulled his other arm back to punch it squarely in the face when someone kicked it off. The Ninja had jumped from the closest building and shoved the monster off with his feet, making it fade away. "You're welcome!" he shouted as he used his scarf to grab onto a window ledge and jump across the buildings, to the next source of monsters.
Danny cradled his aching and bleeding arm for a moment and then scowled. He would have to fight through the pain. He darted to where Randy was going. Only five were left now, the other ten taken out by Jake and Randy, who had handled five of their own imps while Danny was busy. The owners of the cars had fled indoors, watching frightfully as the heroes fought them off.
The half ghost in the group quickly froze two, who faded from view. Danny sighed; he had hoped somehow the ice would preserve it so they could investigate it. As Randy and Jake readied their final attack on hissing imps that were yet backing away, a flurry of green shots flew down upon the creatures. Screeches of pain came and they faded. The trio looked back up towards the source of the flurry, towards the rooftop of Fentonworks. Sam and Tucker held up their cooling wrist rays while Howard (looking surprised by his shot which had stopped one of them,) Trixie, and Spud held lipstick tubes.
All three retreated before anyone dared to approach them, back to Fentonworks.
Danny phased them through the walls into the lab. Everyone changed back to normal and Danny continued to hold his injured limb; the blood was mostly red, with some flecks of green floating in it. Jake grimaced. "Oh, dude, that looks nasty."
"Should we take you to the hospital?" Randy asked worriedly. Danny shook his head.
"No. It hurts, but it'll be okay. My parents always have a first aid kit in the lab in case they get hurt by any experiments." He went to a box on the wall and unlatched it, taking out some antiseptic, cotton balls, and gauze. "A little first aid does the job. That and I have super fast healing, so by the time we meet tomorrow, the wound should be mostly gone. Might be some slight scarring, but that'll fade within three days."
"Wow." Randy stated, sounding impressed, eyes wide. "Well, here, let me get you a wet wash cloth at least so you can clean up the blood..."
"I'll get it." Jake was about to retrieve it as their friends came back down from the ops center. Sam already had a wet pad in hand.
"I saw his wound. Danny, give me the antiseptic and gauze, I'll handle this. Sit down."
The half ghost did as instructed. Sam knelt down with him and wiped off the blood, tossed the pad into a nearby trash can and administered antiseptic around the wound. Danny hissed a little at the stinging but said nothing at all through Sam's work. Finally she wrapped up his arm and smiled. "You're good. Should be all healed within a few days."
"Thanks so much." Danny smiled at her and she blushed and beamed back. Their eyes were locked for a minute straight and finally Randy and Howard looked at each other and laughed.
"Lovebirds!" They shouted together.
"We're not lovebirds!"