It took no time at all once the food had arrived for multiple ravenous teenagers to begin their feast. Maddie and Jack hadn't had so much as a surprised reaction at how much they could eat. They as parents had two teenagers, and one of which was a superhero with an incredibly fast metabolism.
Danny's father looked at his son proudly as he dug into another piece of pizza. "He's growing up so fast. Danny's got the appetite of a Fenton. A regular chip off the old block." He said as he got up to reach for more food. He patted his son's back as he walked. The other teens snickered, and Danny blushed, but said nothing.
Jake swallowed a piece of pepperoni. "Hey, thanks for the food, Mr. and Mrs. F." he said with a smile. Maddie smiled back.
"Oh, it's no problem...your name was Jake, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Jacob Long, but I prefer Jake."
"No problem, Jake." Maddie said cheerfully. Jack turned his head and gave Jake, Spud, Trixie, Randy, and Howard a curious and friendly look.
"Say, we haven't seen you kids around Amity Park before you started working with our son and his friends. Are you new here?" he inquired. The kids shared a look and finally Trixie beamed nonchalantly.
"Yeah, we are. We came right on down from New York City."
"What she said." Spud said as he pointed a thumb at her, and Jake sighed a little in relief. Howard cleared his throat.
"And we're, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, from a city just a few miles away from Norrisville. Not actually Norrisville."
"Yeah, a city just a few miles away. But it's a really small city no one cares about." Randy furthered.
"A tiny city." Howard agreed with a decisive nod.
"A very tiny city." Randy finished, emphasizing the word very. Jazz rolled her eyes, choosing to rest her mind in a book with her, ignoring the situation. Although Maddie and Jack seemed slightly nonplussed by Randy and Howard's hasty cover, they shrugged it off.
"How interesting," Maddie said calmly, "you're both from...nice places."
"Norrisville especially," Jack mused, "home of the Ninja and McFist Industries; my best friend Vlad Masters hates that McFist guy. Must be interesting, almost as interesting as Amity Park. We have ghosts!" he stated proudly. Randy's eyes practically popped out of their head.
"Wait a minute. You mean the Vlad Masters?"
"As in, the Vlad Masters who has a rivalry with Hannibal McFist?" Howard asked, eyes also widened. Jack again bobbed his head proudly.
"That's the guy! Good friend of mine. He and McFist hate each other because they want to own each other's corporations, but the government won't allow either one to buy the other. Something about making their industry a monopoly or something or other." Jack explained with a shrug. Then his eyes narrowed, his eyebrows furrowed, and his smile fell into a frown. "Because Vladdy's my best friend, I share his enemies. Therefore, I also dislike McFist. I don't allow any of his products in our home. Speaking of which, neither of you use his products, do you?" he asked, hands curled up into a fist, elbows touching the tabletop, his fist supporting his head.
Randy and Howard blanched and were about to vehemently lie and deny it when Maddie stepped in. She gave her husband a cross look and pushed his fist away from his chin. "Jack, don't ask the guests that. It's very rude and none of our business."
Her husband sighed. "You're right. Sorry, kids."
"No problem." Randy said anxiously. When Jack looked away to again reach for the pizza box, Maddie rolled her eyes, but acted like nothing had happened at all when he turned back to the table. Randy and Howard quickly shot Danny a suspicious look. Danny leaned over to Randy's ear.
"I've got something to tell you about Vlad after dinner. Meet with my in my room. Pass it on to Howard." he whispered. Randy obeyed and quickly whispered into Howard's ear, who glanced at Danny and said nothing. Tucker under the table texted a similar statement to Jake, Trixie, and Spud, telling them to meet in the bedroom. They answered their phones and read the texts, giving Sam and Tucker a hasty glance to affirm they got the message.
Maddie began to speak again to clear the air. "So, Jake, Trixie, Spud, you are all from New York?"
"Yep. Manhattan." Spud replied. Jake snickered.
"Our principal at our school there is whack. We graduated from that middle school he was at, anyways, so we don't have to deal with him much anymore."
"Yeah, he kept callin' himself a professor." Trixie mentioned, "Might as well have been a professor of crazy."
"Why? What's his name?" Jazz asked, dropping her book to the table, locking her eyes onto Trixie in fascination. Trixie rolled her eyes.
"Rotwood, or Professor Rotwood, I guess."
Maddie and Jack shared a dubious glance. Jack frowned. "Professor Hans Rotwood?" he asked.
"That's him." Jake affirmed.
The parents were silent for a few moments before they began to try stifling laughter. They smiled and snorted as they tried to resist it, but they failed. Both began laughing uproariously. Jazz frowned.
"Hey, stop it! Why are you-"
"Jazz, he isn't like the sort of intellectual you're thinking of. We met him while we were in college." Maddie said, wiping a tear out of her eye, still chuckling. "He claims that...that magic is real and that he was going to prove it. He still hasn't." The mother shook her head back and forth. "Fairies, trolls, unicorns, dragons, of all things..."
Jake laughed halfheartedly. "I know, crazy with a capital c, isn't it?"
"That doesn't even begin to cover it!" Jack chortled, "One time we visited New York before our kids were born to show the scientific community the proto-portal to the Ghost Zone we made and how it actually worked. Back then they were unconvinced we had actually found any ghosts, but were fascinated by the fact we somehow turned it on. We even showed them the blueprints for our current portal." The large man beamed proudly. "A lot of them tried to offer us other explanations as to what it did other than busting open a portal to the Ghost Zone, but we ignored them. We knew we were right. And not too long ago we proved our theory right when ghosts came into the light."
"Rotwood was at our presentation," Maddie explained, "he was very polite, and he asked a lot of questions, too. We were happy to indulge him, but after the presentation he came to give us a proposition." A sigh. "Said he wanted to incorporate our study of ghosts to help back up his hypothesis of magical creature existence with a promise to give us due credit."
"Of course, we kindly yet firmly refused the offer. It would've broken his heart if we flat out told him we thought he was out of his mind." Jack clicked his tongue. "Our refusal threw him off the edge. He was furious; went on and on about how we were the insane ones and that we would regret it when he was discovered for his genius. Never saw him again after that."
"Ah, well, we've proven our hypothesis on ghosts." Maddie mentioned placidly. "He has yet to prove his on the existence of magical creatures."
Jazz blinked a few times and shuddered. Her eyes fell back into her book. After that, dinner conversation slowed. Jack went on as he usually did about ghosts to all the guests. Soon enough everyone went up to Danny's bedroom for an impromptu meeting. As soon as the door closed, Randy opened his mouth.
"You know the guy that's the rival of my rival and didn't tell me?" he demanded, hands on his hips. Danny put his hands up.
"The right time to mention it was hard to tell." Danny pointed out nervously. "Also, he's the mayor of Amity Park and he just happens to be my arch enemy."
Howard heaved an exasperated groan. "What's up with business tycoons being evil jerkwads?"
"How is he your arch enemy?" Randy asked. Tucker and Sam shared a look. Sam then reached under his bed and retrieved a laptop. She popped it open and clicked around until she found a file on Vlad. Sam turned the screen to everyone else. Tucker pointed to the picture of Vlad.
"You all see this, right?"
"Yeah, what about it?" Jake asked, growing impatient.
"Pay close attention." Tucker insisted. He moved the arrow across the screen and clicked on a button. In an instant, the picture changed to Vlad's ghost half, blue skin and dramatic clothing, black hair curved up. Randy cocked his head to the side.
"What exactly-"
"He's half ghost like I am. The first of the extremely few half ghosts in existence. I'm only the second." the ghost boy explained.
They were silent for a moment before everyone let out a simple "oh" of understanding. Danny crossed his arms.
"He was changed by the proto-portal my dad mentioned. He shoved his face in front of it right before my father turned it on. It backfired and blasted him with ectoplasm. So, to make it a quick summary, he hates and wants to kill my dad, wants to marry my mom, and has on multiple occasions tried to persuade me to be his son and apprentice. Oh, and once he tried to hit on my mom and she got mad and now she doesn't like him either. So there."
"Shocker." Trixie said sarcastically. Howard crossed his arms.
"Why doesn't your dad know Vlad thinks he's a shoob?" he asked.
"...My dad can be kind of...oblivious at times." Danny answered. He didn't understand why at that moment Randy's face had gone white.
"Dude, don't you know what this means? What if he's working with the enemy along with McFist and the Sorcerer? Has he done anything since this all started?"
Danny frowned. "No, not a thing, but sometimes it goes a month or two between intervals of him trying something. He spends time on his plans to try to make everything go right. It doesn't necessarily mean that he's with them."
"Yeah, Randy," Trixie agreed, "besides, you don't know this for a fact. But we'll keep our eyes out. We've been doin' this for awhile. No offense, but you and Howard are the newbies here."
"Just kind of newbies." Spud repeated patiently. Howard glared at Spud and Trixie.
"Are not!" he protested.
"Oh? How long has Randy been the Ninja?" Trixie asked. Randy shrugged, answering for Howard.
"A few months, maybe? And that's okay. We're new. We're learning. But I'm sticking to my instinct that something's not right here. Not right here at all."