EPISODE 57—RISING TIDES
The television was on at full blast in Danny's living room when he woke up one weekend. Jazz, Jack, and Maddie were huddled around it; he and Noah peeked in to see what was going on.
"The recent storm at Lake Eerie, of unprecedented strength, did intense damage to a government facility located nearby," Lance Thunder reported. "A tree was reported to have fallen, and been blown by hurricane-force winds, into the side of a local government research facility. Flash floods were also reported around various regions for miles around, shortly after the accident."
"I'm telling you, it's a water ghost!" Jack bellowed. "I'm sure of it! The Guys in White were doing research on a ghost that could control water, and when their security failed, that ghost escaped!"
"That's ridiculous, Dad," Jazz said. "You think everything is the work of ghosts. I'm sure the flash floods were because of the storm."
"Because of a storm that freed a ghost!"
"Jazz, I think you're father's right," Maddie said. She then looked at Jack, who was still watching the TV, and added in a whisper, "This time."
"How do you know?" Danny asked; the three elder members of the family looked up.
"Good morning, Danny," his mother said. "And I'm saying that all this happenstance—the government facility, the floods, and the strange new breeds of fish appearing in local rivers and streams—it matches what our suspicions are. That research facility next to Lake Eerie was always where people believed the Lake Michigan Ghost was taken once the government captured it!"
"But isn't the Lake Michigan Ghost a myth?" Jazz asked, frowning.
"That's what they want you to think," Jack stated triumphantly. "They covered up ghosts for a long time, they did!"
"What do you think?" Danny asked, elbowing Noah lightly.
"Oh, I think the Lake Michigan Ghost is the real deal," he said. "All the accounts seem to fit together a little too—"
Danny's ghost sense suddenly went off, a cold wisp of blue air escaping his lips. Noah's ghost sense went off at the same time—Danny had learned that Noah's ghost sense was a little burst of fire that escaped with his breath. That explained what Tucker and Sam thought they saw in the alley right before they had first learned about Noah's powers. He looked a little bit like a dragon, letting loose a puff of flame. They looked at each other and backed out of the room.
"If it isn't a ghost's work, I'll eat my hat!" Jack yelled as they edged away.
"You don't have a hat, sweetie."
"Oh, right. I'll eat my jumpsuit!"
Danny raced up to his room and grabbed the Spooktacles; Noah followed close behind him. Danny turned his head intangible and stuck it out the wall, looking around, and gasped when he caught sight of a glowing gray aura just outside.
A few drops on his head told him that it was starting to rain. He looked around to see a dark and threatening sky overhead that stretched in all directions, and seemed to be growing. But just five minutes ago, when he'd woken up, the sky had been cloudless.
He couldn't see what ghost it was—just a dark gray aura. But his suspicions were confirmed when the figure raised its arms and the rain picked up intensity immediately, hammering the ground below; people in the streets yelped and ran for cover.
"It's Vortex," Danny said after he pulled his head back in. "The ghost of weather! What's he doing out again?"
"The ghost of weather?" Noah asked. "Whoa. What aren't there ghosts for?"
Danny thought for a moment. "Good question. Light, maybe? And fire—thank God there's no fire ghosts."
Noah smiled and held up a hand with a glowing fireball in it.
"Present company excluded," Danny corrected himself. "All right. I'm going to go out there." He transformed and got ready to fly out.
Noah transformed, too, his shirt turning green and his pants turning black; his eyes and hair became blood-red and his skin turned tan. He got ready to fly next to Danny.
Danny turned and grimaced a little bit. "Um, Noah…"
"Yeah?" Noah asked, looking at him.
Danny put a hand on his shoulder. "You know… I'd been thinking. It was okay when you helped me take on the Box Ghost yesterday in the middle of the night—that was fine. You were great. But I'm not sure you're quite ready for this one. Vortex is a handful." He sighed. "Also… I don't think anyone can see us working together."
Noah blinked rapidly. "What?"
"Well, think about it," Danny said. "If a new ghost superhero, the same age as Danny Phantom, showed up and started battling ghosts, at almost the same time as a new high school student, the same age as Danny Fenton, showed up and started attending Casper High… It would put you in more danger than any ghost fight. The Box Ghost in the middle of the night… That's fine. Anytime. But in plain sight? The Guys in White would be onto you. And maybe me, too—guilt by association."
Noah thought it over for a while, and then nodded. He got out of his fighting pose, and transformed back.
"I'm really sorry," Danny said.
"No, you're right," Noah said. "I should have thought of that, too. Here." He lifted his necklace off its strap—the prototype new ghost-catching device that could capture any one ghost at a time—and handed it to Danny. "Try it out for me!"
"How do I work it?"
"Just whip it at 'em. It'll track down the nearest ghost in its path. Throw it slightly to the right of your target; it'll spin around and smack the ghost. If it misses, though, I'd suggest turning human, because it'll come back towards you, and then… well, you know."
"Yeah," Danny said. "Thanks!" He stopped for a moment to make sure Noah was okay with being left behind, and then he turned intangible and leaped out the window.
Noah sighed and sat down on his bed, drumming his fingers on his knees, his usual cheerful mood gone. He wasn't mad at Danny—Danny had been completely right—but he still was missing the action that he'd come to this town for, and it was highly disappointing in a stomach-sick sort of way.
Danny flew up behind Vortex, struggling against the torrential rains. He turned intangible to fly effortlessly through the rain, but he had a feeling that he wasn't going to be able to throw the necklace at Vortex in this weather; it'd get hit wildly off-course by the rain. He'd have to get up close.
Vortex turned around, somehow sensing Danny's presence near him. "You!" he yelled, sending a bolt of lightning from his fingertips immediately. Danny barrel-rolled and veered hard to the right and dodged it, then floated near Vortex. Vortex took a deep gasping breath and then declared, "Leave now if you know what's good for you!"
"Sorry to rain on your parade, Vortex," Danny said. "But your future isn't looking so sunny!" He blasted a beam of energy at Vortex, who swiped it away with his hand.
"I have no time for—" Vortex gasped deeply— "your idiotic puns! I have direct orders that you are to be—" another deep gasp— "eliminated!"
"Direct orders?" Danny frowned. "What, are you working for Vlad again?"
"No!" Vortex huffed. "I serve my older brother now!" An extreme gust of wind whipped through the air, and Danny fought against it as much as he could. His arms were busy trying to keep him steady, so he fired an ice beam from his eyes.
The beam split through the rain and air, freezing some of the drops on its way. It hit Vortex directly. He gasped as his lower body was encased in ice, and he smashed against it as he fell to the ground; eventually, the ice shattered, and he regained his balance. However, his attention had shifted away from keeping up the wind and rain, and both died down momentarily.
This gave Danny an idea, and he continued to fire beams of ice at Vortex. The rain slowed by a lot until it was just a drizzle.
Vortex became furious, and he screamed, "YOU MAY HAVE GAINED NEWFOUND CONTROL OVER ICE SINCE THE LAST TIME WE MET—" gasp— "BUT THAT WON'T MATTER IF THE ICE DOESN'T STAY!" He flexed his muscles—or whatever equivalent of muscles a ghost had—and the rain clouds disappeared. Sun began shining brightly down, and all the ice melted in an instant.
"Perfect," Danny said, grinning. "I bet you think you're hot stuff, don't you?"
"I SAID, NO PUNS!" Vortex hollered.
"I'm just adding some humor to the same old boring fights," Danny said. "Because I doubt you're going to find this funny!" He took the metal diamond off the necklace, extended it into the boomerang shape it had, and whipped it slightly to the right of Vortex, as Noah had said. The weather ghost eyed it curiously until it curved back around towards him; he backed away rapidly but the device changed its course and struck him in the side of the head, pulling him into the bluish-glow that surrounded the device until he disappeared. It whirled back around and Danny caught it out of the air.
"Awesome job, Noah," Danny whispered to himself. He flew back down to give Noah the great news of the device's success.
When he got back inside, Noah wasn't in his room, or in the lab, or in the kitchen, or in the living room. Danny was a bit nervous about this.
"Jazz?" he asked his sister, who was on a sofa in the living room, still reading from the pile of books Noah had brought with him. "Have you seen Noah?"
"Oh, yeah," Jazz said, not looking up. "He's in my room."
"Your room?"
"He's looking through some of the books that I have," Jazz said. "He seemed interested in the sort of fantasy books I loved when I was in eighth grade and in freshman year. So I showed him my collection."
Danny wandered up the stairs and walked into Jazz's room. Noah was sitting on the floor, his back against Jazz's bed, reading a book entitled Eragon. Next to him were three books that looked like they were from the same series, and some other series: The Wheel of Time, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Books of Umber, and Twilight, turned upside-down and shoved in a corner.
"No Twilight for you, huh?" Danny asked, chuckling.
Noah looked up briefly. "No, it's just that I've already read the first one. It didn't deserve the extreme hype that its fan base gave it, but it also certainly didn't deserve the firestorm of intense hatred that came from the people who never read it."
"Just an average book?"
"Just an average book. At least to a fourteen-year-old guy. Maybe it's more relatable or something to the girls."
Danny poked a stack of three books with his feet. "What's The Books of Umber?"
"Came highly recommended by a friend," Noah said. "They said that it was amazing. It's won several awards, but it didn't become a huge phenomenon like some of the others inexplicably did." He looked back down at his book.
Danny tried to smile. "I hope you're not upset at me for asking you to stay back."
"Oh, no, definitely not," Noah said without looking up. "I promise I'm not mad at you. It's was just a little disappointing, that's all, but I can deal with it."
"Your necklace worked great," Danny said, holding up the diamond-shaped piece of metal. "I don't know how you did that. So, it can only hold one ghost at a time?"
"That's right. At least until I improve it."
"Are you making another one?"
Noah nodded. "I'm working on it in the lab right now, and I don't feel embarrassed doing it in front of people now that I know it'll work. It's going to be the exact same device again, and maybe after this, I'll try to devise one that can capture more than one ghost at a time. Also, I'm doing it at a healthy pace as of now; not taking any more all-nighters."
"I… guess…" Danny was listening to the noises from outside, and forgot what he was about to say. "Are those police sirens?"
"Yeah," Noah said, putting his book down this time. "Might be an ambulance. Wonder if that has anything to do with Vortex."
"Oh, yeah," Danny said. "Vortex. He said… he was serving his older brother."
"Older brother?" Noah said, wrinkling his brow. "I didn't know ghosts could have siblings. …Present company excluded."
"I knew of one pair of siblings," Danny said. "Dora and Aragon."
Noah looked down at his book. "Eragon?"
Danny laughed. "Interesting. I doubt the author knew about the ghost, but interesting coincidence… since Aragon was a dragon-ghost."
Jack Fenton suddenly burst into the room. "Kids!" he yelled. "Have you seen any sign of the Refrigerator Ghost?"
Danny and Noah both just stared blankly.
"He will not have our ham!" Jack shouted and ran back down the stairs.
The boys exchanged glances.
Jazz walked into the room. "Don't mind Dad," she said. "It's just that there were a bunch of refrigerator thefts last night, and the police say it could only have been a ghost… it was too many refrigerators and too little trace of where they'd gone." She laughed to herself. "And he might have been able to avoid Dad's wrath if he'd gone after, say, microwaves, or toasters, but no one is messing with our refrigerator and getting away with it."
"How true that is," Danny said as Jazz walked out.
"Danny!" he heard his mother call. "Tucker and Sam are here!"
"Awesome!" He jumped up and ran down the stairs. "Come on, Noah."
"I think I'll stay here," Noah said softly.
Danny's face fell a bit, but he nodded and ran down the stairs.
Sam and Tucker grinned at him as he approached the door. As Sam walked in, she asked, "So, what was that torrential two-minute rain storm we had just now? Another appearance of Gasper the Friendly Ghost?"
"Vortex? Yep."
"How'd you beat him so quickly?" Tucker asked.
"This thing worked amazing!" He held up the necklace. "Noah's invention may save me so much effort if he reinvents it to capture more than one ghost at a time."
"Speaking of the protégé, where is he?" Sam asked, looking up towards the stairs.
"He's… a little disappointed," Danny said.
"Ah," Tucker said knowingly. "Finally broke it to him?"
"Yeah," Danny said quietly. "I mean, I'd love him to help. But it just seems like it would be a little too obvious if someone started paying attention."
"No, I agree totally," Sam said. "And he's nowhere near as skilled as you. He needs some time to work on his skills, anyway. Vortex would have creamed him—he almost creamed you, Danny, even just recently."
Danny nodded in agreement. "And we wouldn't want him gaining weather powers tied to his emotions, like I did."
"Aw!" Tucker said. "But it was so funny the first time!"
Sam suddenly jumped. She took out her phone and flipped it open. "Ugh. Sorry. It's my mom." She walked into the living room with her phone over one ear and a finger in the other. "Hello?"
"So, what brings you guys here?" Danny asked.
"We figured we'd stop by and see what's up, ghost-wise," Tucker said. "You know, due to the freak shower we just had, followed by ten seconds of scorching heat that would even have given Sam a tan."
"She's Goth," Danny said. "She wouldn't have tanned; she'd have dissolved."
Sam walked back into the room with her phone away and a look of disgust on her face. "Sorry, guys," she said. "My mom wants me to get home. I didn't exactly tell her that I left, and she's all freaked out about the weather. And this time, my grandmother agrees with her, which is highly unusual."
"That's freakier than the weather," Tucker said. "But, if you must."
"I must," Sam said, and opened the door a little more harshly than normal. She didn't exit, though, just stood and stared.
"Sam?" Tucker asked. "You know you're supposed to walk through the door after you open it if you want to get anywhere?"
"What's going on?" was Sam's response.
Danny and Tucker both peered out the door, and watched as dozens of people ran back into their houses. The street was flooded. It wasn't the flood caused by the short rain they'd had—that left the ground wet, but not this wet. The water was still rising, and it was almost up to the top step to the door of Fenton Works. Already, some people were out on their roofs, looking out at the source of the water—the lake on the edge of town.
"Guys," Danny said. "I think I just figured out who Vortex's older brother is."
"The Lake Michigan Ghost?" Tucker said.
"And that the storm that blew a tree into the research facility was no freak accident?" Sam added.
"And," Danny continued, "that we've officially got bigger problems to worry about than the Refrigerator Ghost."
"The what?"
Danny Phantom popped back through the Ghost Zone, necklace in hand, and transformed in front of his friends. "Taken care of," he said.
"Where'd you dump Vortex?" Noah asked.
"I handed him over to the Observants," Danny said. "He was supposed to be serving a prison sentence, anyway, but Vlad set him loose in that whole weather-conspiracy thing that went wrong."
"Oh, yeah," Tucker said. "That was some good times."
Danny waded through the almost knee-deep water and reached the stairs, which looked like twenty or so mini-waterfalls. The rest of the group followed him up.
The walls of the lab were well-built; the water wasn't leaking through there. It was pouring through the cracks under the doors and through a couple weak spots in the foundation. The water had risen up to about a foot above the level of the door on the Fentons' house, and almost everybody was on their roofs. Thankfully, though, the water was simply gushing down into the underground lab and then falling through into the Ghost Zone. It was like an endless drainage system; the water wasn't rising any higher, since it was draining out as quickly as it was coming in.
They reached the top of the stairs, and walked into the kitchen. Jack Fenton was standing guard in front of the refrigerator with the Fenton Bazooka in several inches of water, looking left and right. "You kids see anything yet?" When they all shook their heads no, he smirked. "That's because he's scared to afterdeath of what I might do to him if he shows his face around here!"
"You've noticed the flood, right, Dad?" Danny asked.
Jack looked down. "Did I leave the sink running again?"
"No, Dad," Danny said. "It's just a flood."
"A GHOST FLOOD?" Jack boomed.
"N—" Danny cut himself off. "Actually, yes."
"I knew it!" Jack said. "But that can wait until I catch the Refrigerator Ghost red-handed!"
"I think most ghosts have blue or green hands," Noah piped in. Danny was glad to see that he seemed to be over his small funk.
"All right," Danny said as they went into the living room. "Now that I've got this necklace freed up again, I'm going to go see if I can't find the Lake Michigan Ghost."
"I think he calls himself Riptide," Noah said. "That's shorter, anyway."
Danny nodded. "So I'm guessing it'll be just as short as the first time… if it could capture Vortex, a ghost powerful enough to spread storms across the globe, it's gotta be able to get anything."
"Stay safe," Noah said. "We'll hold down the fort."
"Take the Fenton Phones," Sam suggested. "And the Spooktacles."
"Oh—good idea," Danny said. "I'll tell you when I find him." He practically flew down to the lab—actually, he did fly—and grabbed two sets of the Fenton Phones and their microphones, along with the new pair of Spooktacles his father had just finished. Good thing Sam reminded him—he had been intending to go down and steal the glasses when they were finished. He couldn't have his father looking through them—if he saw Danny, it would blow his secret identity. He flew back up and gave a set of the Fenton Phones to Sam, and then was about to transform.
But he noticed Noah looking down the hall, and he thought it might be a little insensitive to the kid if he transformed and flew off here—it could be sad for him, being teased by the fact that he couldn't join Danny. So Danny flew up to his room, transformed there, and blasted off, sliding on the Spooktacles.
The water was glowing an eerie green color, as if it wasn't all Earthly water. Danny looked around, but he didn't see anything other than the glow just yet.
"See anything?" came Sam's voice from the headphones.
"No… not yet," Danny said. "Well… kind of. The water doesn't really seem natural. It looks like a mix of normal water and glowing green water."
"Whoa," Sam said. "Does that go for the water we were wading in before?"
"I think so," Danny said. He floated further ahead, looking down the streets. "Wait! There's… a darker shape of color under the water. It looks like it might be… purple. Maybe it's red and just under the water?"
"Check it out," Sam said. "Is it Riptide?"
"Either that or the Refrigerator Ghost became the Outdoor Pool Ghost," Danny said. He leaned in closer to see what it was.
Suddenly the shape writhed in the water, turning itself vertical, and shot upwards, breaking the surface and lunging for Danny—it was a blood-red shark with three eyes. He shouted out and pulled himself upwards; the shark's jaws just missed him, and it slammed back into the water.
"What? What?" Sam yelled. "What was that?"
"Ghost shark," Danny said. "I don't think it was Riptide—it didn't look exactly sentient—but I think Riptide has little helpers."
"Sentient," Sam said. "Good word."
"Thanks, I guess," Danny said. He tracked down the purple underwater shape again, and zapped the water around it with an ice ray. It thrashed for a moment before it was frozen solid. "Hey! That works."
"What works?"
Danny found another purple glow with the glasses, and froze that one solid, too. "I'm freezing them solid under the water. Seems to be working fine right now."
"Keep doing that," Sam said. "Maybe you'll cheese off Riptide enough so that he'll come after you."
"Exactly," Danny said, blasting another shape; this one was smaller, and as the ice cube containing it floated to the surface, it appeared to be a ghost piranha with jaws so big they wouldn't shut all the way. "And for the record, I don't advise going for a swim."
"I hadn't planned on it, but good advice."
He stalked through the drowned streets for a while longer, blasting the fish and sharks solid; he must have struck twenty of them in ten minutes. Finally, a result came to fruition: the ground started shaking violently. Houses began to collapse, and people fell into the water everywhere.
"Oops," Danny whispered.
An enormous form broke the surface of the water a few feet away; Danny jumped back. Through the Spooktacles, it was the same color as the water; when it materialized, it became a darker green. It was four stories tall, with water constantly running down its skin like a river, drizzling into the growing flood. It wore nothing but a rough garment of seaweed from its waist to its knees, was covered in fins, and had gills on its side flaring in anger. He was sure that this was Riptide.
"WHO DARES TO FREEZE MY PRECIOUS WATER?" Riptide proclaimed. "AND WHO DARES TO DRAIN IT INTO THE GHOST ZONE?"
"That doesn't sound good," Sam muttered through the headphones.
When Riptide saw Danny, the ghost didn't bother with a monologue, or a lame pun, or an accusation of any sort. He simply punched his hand into the water, and an immense wave of water erupted in a direct path towards Danny. He shot upwards into the sky, but the water followed him, shooting upwards and grabbing him like a tentacle, pulling him below the surface.
He could see purple shapes approaching him from all direction; blood-red piranhas and sharks coming into view. He froze all the water around him solid, to take away Riptide's power from the water that held him. The ghost fish all crashed into the wall of ice, making it crack, and then they backed away and kept hammering it.
Danny turned himself intangible and broke the surface before Riptide could react, and sent a snowball of energy hurtling at his adversary. The water ghost plunged into the depths and rose again twenty feet away almost instantaneously, sending a tidal wave at Danny that seemed to reach the sky.
Danny let loose a few seconds of his ghostly wail, stopping himself before he used up all of his energy. But it was enough to blast the tidal wave entirely backwards, and Riptide parted it as it was about to hit him. He growled fiercely and gnashed his teeth like a shark.
Danny unhooked the necklace and extended the arms again, knowing he was, for now, outmatched; his only hope was that this would work. He whipped the boomerang necklace at Riptide's right side.
As the necklace was about to hit, Riptide suddenly melted, turning himself entirely into water, and he dropped into the flood, disappearing. Danny cringed, looking around for where Riptide might pop up next…
The boomerang, having lost a target, continued its circular path, and Danny didn't notice until it smacked into the back of his head, and then the world spun violently out of view and everything was black.
"Danny!" Sam said sternly into the microphone, but not too loud to avoid suspicion from the Fentons. "Danny! Come on, say something! Answer us!"
Noah was even paler than usual; Tucker was chewing his beret. Sam turned to them with panic. "He's not answering. What… What do we do?"
"I'm going out to look for him," Noah said. "I'll stay invisible. Even if I'm seen, I doubt that anyone's going to suspect anything if I'm not flying around next to Danny."
Sam's eyes filled with tears. "Don't get in a fight with Riptide, though," she said. "Just find Danny, and come back here as soon as you can. Okay?"
"If Riptide sees you, run," Tucker added. "There's no reason to try to challenge him. This is the older brother of a ghost that beat the pants off of Danny less than a month ago. Be smart."
"Have a little faith, guys," Noah said. "I'm just going to go find Danny."
Sam lunged at him and hugged him tight. "Take another set of the Fenton Phones," she said in his ear. "I'll keep in contact with you."
Noah nodded and broke himself out of the hug, running down the stairs to the lab.
"I hope he's okay," Sam said, wiping the corner of her eye.
"Danny said he's pretty darn good for a kid who's only had his powers for two months," Tucker assured her.
"And he still won't tell Danny how he got his powers?" Sam wondered aloud.
"No," Tucker said. "And I have no idea why."
Noah scanned carefully everywhere, flying invisibly through the air. He'd brought another pair of Spooktacles that Danny kept in his room, and the Fenton Phones. He felt a little vulnerable without his necklace, though…
He stared down one street, where there was a hulking mass of green squeezing itself through peoples' doors. He heard a shout of, "WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS THE GHOST PORTAL?"
"Guys," he whispered, flying out of Riptide's line of sight. "Bad news. Riptide is looking for the Ghost Portal that's draining all of his water."
"That's really not good," Sam said. "Noah, if he gets close to Fenton Works and feels the current…"
"I know," Noah said. "I'm going to lead him away."
"What? No! You can't put yourself in danger like that!"
"Maybe if I get close, I can find Danny, too," Noah said.
"Noah, are you listening? Do not go after Riptide!"
"If he destroys the portal, all of us are going to drown. I won't engage him, but I'm going to lead him away." He flew towards Riptide and charged up his usual energy ball, when his ghost sense went off; a little puff of fire.
He thought for a moment, letting the energy dissipate. Danny had said that, according to a book he'd taken from the Ghost Zone, each half-ghost had control over a specific element. Danny's was ice, and his ghost sense was a burst of cold breath. Noah's ghost sense was a puff of fire, and Danny had postulated that Noah's element was fire.
Well, if that was true, there would be no better time to learn it than immediately. He concentrated on his hand, imagining it getting very, very hot. His hand started to feel warm; he concentrated on an image of fire, and when he next looked at his hand, it was burning.
He grinned wildly, and then held out his hand. As Riptide emerged from another house, still searching for the portal, Noah blasted a stream of fire that hurtled its way through the sky and smashed into Riptide's back.
There was a deafening hiss as steam billowed out of the ghost's back, and he howled and dunked his sizzling backside into the water. Then he lifted himself up and charged after Noah with a roar, despite the fact that Noah was still invisible. The ground began to quake, and several more houses collapsed into the flood.
Noah turned around and jetted himself down the street he'd come from, and Riptide turned and followed, slightly gaining every second. Noah turned again, and again, and soon Riptide was right behind him.
Noah shot directly upwards, and Riptide followed, sending himself high into the sky and grabbing the teen around the waist; Noah struggled, turning visible again, and yelled, "How can you see me?"
"FOOLISH HALF-GHOST CHILD!" Riptide cried out. "I AM RIPTIDE, GHOST OF EARTHQUAKES AND FLOODS. I CAN SENSE THE WATER IN YOUR HALF-HUMAN BODY!"
He brought Noah down and smashed the boy into a building; the people on top of it screamed and backed off towards the sides.
On the roof directly next to it was Dash Baxter. Dash's only assumption was that it was Danny Fenton a.k.a. Danny Phantom fighting this ghost for them, and he was quite obviously in danger. Dash had to do something fast. He looked around for anything that might help; what was a water ghost's weakness?
His eyes settled on the appliances his parents had brought up to salvage from the flood: the microwave, the gaming systems, several lamps, all of their televisions, a portable battery pack that you could plug things into… and the toaster.
Dash grabbed the toaster and held it like a football. He plugged in the toaster to the battery pack, so that it had electricity. He wrapped the cord around the toaster so it would fly best, and stuck the battery pack inside the toaster. He then pushed down the lever, turning it on, and threw a Hail Mary directly into Riptide's head.
There was a blast of electricity and steam billowed out of the hole where Riptide's head used to be. He probably would have been screaming, if he'd still had a throat; he threw himself backwards into the water and disappeared.
Noah rose up and stared at Riptide, then looked to his right to see Dash staring at him, confused. "You're not Danny Phantom," Dash said, scratching his head.
"I'm… new around these parts," Noah coughed. From the sound of this boy ghost's voice, Dash had the feeling that Riptide had been strangling him.
Noah turned around and blasted off into the distance before Dash could make the connection. Of course, Dash was already in on Danny's secret, though neither Danny nor Noah knew this.
"Sam," Noah choked into the microphone.
"Oh my GOD. Noah. You freaking… gave me a heart attack. Can you never do that again, please?"
"Sure," he hacked. "No problem." He stopped along the way to give some invisible help to people who were floating around some of the collapsed houses, and then flew back to Fenton Works.
Sam threw her arms around him again. "Noah… That was so stupid."
"I led Riptide pretty far away, though, didn't I?" Noah said in a hoarse whisper, rubbing his throat. "And he'll probably keep going that way, because he'd think I was headed over there. Also, his head exploded."
"What?" Sam asked. "What does that mean?"
"Riptide's head," Noah repeated. "Exploded. He'll probably be able to regenerate, I'm guessing, since he seems to be able to just decompose and reconstruct himself at will. But Dash Baxter was near us when Riptide attacked, and Dash took some sort of electrical device and launched it into Riptide's head. Which then exploded."
"Dash did that?" Tucker asked. "Really?"
Noah nodded. "I recognized him. So… I couldn't find Danny. I don't have the slightest idea where he is; I didn't see him through these…" he took off the Spooktacles and transformed back, "…and he wasn't around where Riptide was."
There was a slight knocking sound at the door. All three of the teens looked over at the door, which still had water rushing through the cracks at a foot above the floor level. "What the heck could that be?" Sam asked.
The knocking was soft and inconsistent. Noah walked over to the door, reached his hand through the door intangibly, and pulled back with the Spooktacles and one of the Fenton Phones.
Sam clamped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "That's…"
"Danny's gear," Noah finished. "But… what…"
There was another soft knocking sound; Noah fished out the second of the pair of Fenton Phones. "But that still leaves…" He looked around, and gasped. "The necklace! It must have come around and hit Danny!"
Sam's eyes shot open. "Where is it?"
"It might have—Oh, God!" Noah turned and flew at top speed down the stairs to the lab. Sam and Tucker followed clumsily on foot, bounding down the stairs.
Noah's eyes found the necklace, which was thin enough that it had slipped through the side of the door. It was floating quickly towards the portal to the Ghost Zone, and was almost there. Noah shot himself like a cannon towards the portal, hooked his fingers around the necklace just as it was about to phase through into the Ghost Zone, and then he blasted backwards again, hurtling towards the stairs and knocking Sam and Tucker over as they came into view.
"Did you get it?" Sam shouted and turned around to see Noah lying on his back on the stairs, holding up the necklace. He pressed a thumb to the center, and the necklace glowed light blue; Danny popped out of it and took a large breath as he looked around nervously, and then saw Sam, Tucker, and Noah.
He let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, man. I thought I was going to be stuck in there forever."
"I'm sorry," Noah said softly, still lying on his back.
"What? Don't be," Danny said.
"My necklace backfired on you."
"No, no," Danny said. "You warned me about that. You said that might happen; I just forgot."
Noah smiled a little bit and lifted his head up. "What now?" he croaked.
"What happened to him?" Danny asked, jabbing a thumb at Noah.
"He threw a fireball at Riptide," Sam said. "To lure him away from the lab."
"Wow," Danny said. "So your element is fire, then."
"That realization was indeed just established," Noah whispered. "But, um, let's not waste any time. How are we going to beat this thing?"
Danny shrugged. "It turned into water when I tried to hit it with the boomerang." He perked up. "Maybe I could sneak up invisibly behind him and hit him in the back point-blank!"
"He can sense you coming, even if you're invisible," Noah said.
"Oh."
"I don't know how this is going to work," Noah said. "Neither of us is strong enough to take him on. I doubt we could even do it together."
Danny thought for a moment. "Maybe," he said to himself.
"What?" Tucker asked.
"Noah," Danny said, turning to him. "I really need your help."
Noah blinked rapidly again. "What do you mean?"
"Do you think you can build a machine that amplifies the power of ghosts?"
Noah thought for a moment, and nodded. "I've built a lot of ghost-related devices. I'm sure I could handle that. Why?"
"Because it really cheesed off Riptide when I froze all of his water," Danny said. "I think… if you can build a machine that uses my ice powers to freeze all of the water in Amity Park… we'd have him by the neck! He'd have no water to work with, and no minions to help him!"
Noah brightened up. "Yeah," he said. "I think I could do that! It might take a while, though, to come up with the designs. I would need something like an ecto-converter."
Danny grinned, and he flew over into the lab again, pulling open drawers and sifting through blueprints. After about three minutes of searching, he pulled out a blueprint of the Ecto-Converter that his parents had attached to the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle before it was stolen. "I think this is what you were talking about," he said.
Noah scanned the blueprints. "This is it," he said. "This is perfect. Then all I need to do is recalibrate the conversion process to intensify the energy instead of altering it into an energy source. Then we can amplify any ghost power a thousand fold!"
"Sounds like a plan," Danny said. "Although I only understood the last sentence of that, it still sounds like a plan!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The scream came from upstairs, from his father. Danny turned invisible and shot through the floor, finding a great big empty patch where the refrigerator had been; Jack Fenton was lying on his side with tears streaming down his face, sucking the thumb on one hand and pounding the flooded floor with the other hand.
"The Refrigerator Ghost," Danny whispered to himself, and he flew out the roof.
He immediately saw a refrigerator floating through the air, carried by an invisible thief. Danny zoomed around him and stopped in front; the refrigerator slowed to a stop, and the thief became visible.
"Filch?" Danny shouted. "Oh, come on. Do we really have to do this again?"
"I will not be interrupted!" Filch growled. "Move out of the way." His hands were glowing red.
"What do you have against fridges?" Danny laughed. "That's cold, Filch." He unhooked the Fenton Thermos from his belt; he didn't need the necklace for this one. At the sight of the thermos that had captured him a dozen times in the past couple of weeks, he paled and dropped the fridge. "You want it, it's yours!" he yelled and flew away.
Danny flew under the machine and caught it, coughing from the lint that was falling all over his face from the bottom of the fridge. "How does Filch keep getting out?" Danny muttered. He'd taken away the portal-opening device that Filch had stolen from Fenton Works, and it was in the ecto-proof glove compartment of the Specter Speeder. How did Filch keep getting out?
"IT'S THAT DANNY PHANTOM KID! HE'S THE REFRIGERATOR GHOST!"
Danny turned, rolling his eyes at the sight of Jack leaning out the window. His father grabbed an ecto ray gun out of seemingly nowhere and blasted it; Danny was unable to avoid it quickly, carrying the fridge, and he took the blast. As the refrigerator fell towards the flooded ground, Danny shot a beam of ice that froze the water in front of Fenton Works; the fridge fell onto the solid ice block. It was about to tip over, but Danny flew down and picked it up again with great effort, flying it through the wall and into the kitchen. He set it back down where it had been before, just as Jack came into the kitchen with guns blazing.
"That's right, Ghost Kid!" Jack yelled. "You'd better return every single one of those fridges!"
"I'm working on it!" Danny yelled, dodging a blast that knocked a bunch of family pictures into the slightly flooded floor. "First I have to track down the ghost that stole all of them, which I might have been able to do just now if you hadn't shot me!"
"A likely story!" Jack roared, and fired again. Danny phased through the floor into the lab, finding Noah hard at work already on the Ecto-Converter.
He turned back into his human self. "Ignore the sounds from upstairs," he said. "I just found out that Filch is the ghost stealing all the refrigerators."
"Why did he suddenly switch to just refrigerators?" Tucker asked. "For the notoriety?"
"I have absolutely no idea," Danny said.
"Sam and I will take care of Filch," Tucker said.
"We will?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, come on," Tucker said. "Our very own ghost mystery, without Danny!"
Sam grinned. "That actually sounds like a lot of fun. Let's take the Specter Speeder. Noah, how fast is Riptide?"
"A little faster than me," he said. "But I don't know if he was going full speed."
"I bet the Speeder could outrun him," Sam said. "Come on, Tucker, let's do it!"
"I'll phase it out for you," Danny said. He passed Sam and Tucker through the wall of the garage with the Specter Speeder inside; thankfully, it was sealed up pretty tight and had remained dry. They all climbed inside; as Tucker started it up, Danny pressed his hands against the wall of the Speeder and turned it intangible. Tucker brought the machine up through the floors of Fenton Works, and once it was completely outside, Danny released his power.
"Have fun with the new ghost tracker my dad installed," Danny said. "It should tell you where the ghosts are in the area… You'll see a bunch underwater, but you could probably set it to only recognize ghosts of Scale 3 ectoplasmic power or higher, and then only ghosts at least as powerful as the Box Ghost would show up."
"Wow, Danny," Sam said. "When did you get so up-to-date on your ghost stuff?"
"Noah was talking about it when he was helping my dad in the lab before," Danny said. "I asked him to teach me a little about the Scale system the government uses."
"You go down there and make sure Riptide doesn't come near the Ghost Portal," Sam said. "Tucker and I will be around, looking for Filch's stash. If we find Riptide, we'll contact you. Or if we know where he is."
"Have fun on your mission, guys," Danny said, and flew back down to supervise Noah. He grabbed the Spooktacles and went back upstairs to have a look around first; Riptide was nowhere to be found. Good. They needed all the time they could get.
Sam and Tucker floated around, patrolling the area. "Tucker, pull down," Sam said. "There's some people floating around in the water; let's give them a hand. We'll just tell them that the Fentons commissioned us to help salvage belongings."
Tucker nodded and descended. They helped the people back onto their roofs, and then kept going.
"I gotta say," Tucker said. "This is really exciting." He punched a couple keys on the ghost tracker, and then sat back to watch it scan the surroundings. "Our very own ghost-hunting mission… without Danny taking the reins."
"We're so totally capable of doing this by ourselves," Sam said. "Who needs superpowers?"
Tucker raised his hand; Sam's eyelids dropped.
"Sorry," Tucker said. "I thought you were saying, 'Who needs superpowers?' like you were giving them away."
"No, Tucker," Sam said. "Oh—look. The tracker's done scanning. Looks like the closest Scale 3 ghost is by Marley's Home Appliance Market."
"Mrs. McFadden owns that, doesn't she?" Tucker said. "Wasn't she at the conference up in the Op Center on how to defeat Voromni?"
"Yeah," Sam said. "She said she fancies herself an amateur ghost researcher. She got into it because, as the owner of a home appliance market, she has a lot of boxes… and they kept mysteriously disappearing."
"The Box Ghost," Tucker laughed.
"Probably is," Sam said. "Should we even bother?"
Tucker curled a hand over his chin. "What sort of stuff do they sell at a home appliance market?"
"Oh, you know," Sam said. "Big items like ovens, washing machines…" She gasped. "Refrigerators! Tucker, hit it!"
"Get ready to rumble!" Tucker said. Sam whipped out her Jack-o'-Nine-Tails and her Fenton Thermos, and strapped on her Specter Deflector. They blasted off towards the home appliance market at full speed.
Danny watched Noah work diligently, sitting on a lab table to avoid getting any wetter. The water still gushed into the Ghost Zone; he wondered if any ghosts were noticing. As of yet, though, he hadn't seen any come out. If he did, he had a Fenton Thermos at the ready.
Noah was working as hard as he could, but it didn't look like he had made an incredible amount of progress. This was advanced technology, though; his parents had both worked on it and it still took them a week. Granted, that was with other things on their to-do list, but still, it was painfully slow, just watching.
"Do you have an earliest possible estimate of when this'll be done?"
"I'm working as fast as I can, but it looks like this might not be done for a full day… Sorry."
"That's okay," Danny said. "Just work as hard as you can."
"It'd be so much easier if I already had an ecto-converter and just had to modify it," Noah said. "I don't suppose you would know where to get one?"
"Vlad might have one, but I seriously doubt he'd just hand it over if I asked nicely," Danny said.
"Vlad Masters? The mayor?" Noah asked, looking up momentarily, then going back to work. "I didn't know he was interested in ghosts."
"Oh, I didn't mention that one?" Danny said. "He's half-ghost, too."
Noah almost dropped his tools. "Really?"
"Wait!" Danny shouted; his ghost sense had gone off. Noah's ghost sense went off, too; he jerked his head up to avoid burning his project.
Three ghosts at once popped out of the Ghost Zone. Skulker flew out without saying a word; Johnny 13 blasted up the stairs on his motorcycle. Only Technus stayed for more than a few seconds, proclaiming, "Yes! I, Technus, shall once again be free to wreak digital havoc and technological terror upon this human world!"
"Technus?" Danny laughed, a sudden idea coming to him. "Dude, you're so outdated."
"What?" Technus shouted, his eyes bulging from behind his sunglasses. "Do not tempt me, ghost child, especially not in this room, so packed to the brim of what a master of technology can use against you!"
"Master of technology?" Danny snickered. "You see this kid here? He's more of a master of technology than you'll ever be!"
Noah looked up, an angry Shut up! look on his face.
"This child?" Technus laughed. "This little whippersnapper? No human can outdo Technus!"
"That's what you think," Danny said. He held up the blueprints to the machine Noah was building. "Noah here is building an ecto-converter. You know how hard those are to make? He's an absolute genius. I bet you couldn't build an ecto-converter if your afterlife depended on it!"
"You young and foolish ghost boy!" Technus yelled, grabbing the blueprints. "Watch this!" He held up his hands, and pieces of equipment started coagulating from all around the room. They snapped into place, and other equipment welded them in; finally, metal panels from the walls were stripped and covered the device almost completely. "I have accomplished your task of extreme difficulty in six point three seconds!"
Noah looked on, impressed, as Danny took the necklace and whipped it at Technus. At this close range, Technus was unable to react, and he was sucked into the device, hollering threats. The ecto-converter dropped down, and Danny grabbed it just before it hit the water. "Does this work?"
"That was brilliant," Noah said as Danny dropped the ecto-converter onto the table in front of him. "Thank you! This shouldn't take more than an hour now!"
Danny held up the necklace. "I'm going to go drop him off in the Ghost Zone," he said. "You okay with being alone for a couple minutes?"
"Yeah," Noah said. "Don't worry about me. Go on!"
Danny darted through the portal to the Ghost Zone; Noah stripped away the metal covering the device to begin modifying the inside.
Sam and Tucker pulled in front of the market, which was on a small hill; only about an inch of water was pouring through the door. The Speeder hovered in place as Sam activated the anti-ghost parking mechanism; it glowed with a ghost shield that was only slightly visible. No ghost of theft was going to be stealing this one.
Sam peered in the window; the refrigerator aisle was visible, but there were no ghosts. The tracker told them that Filch (if it was Filch) was inside the building, but he wasn't here.
They opened the door and ran inside, making as little noise as they could as they splashed in the water. There were stairs leading both up and down; the stairs down below were guarded by a solid-looking iron door that was closed tight. They took the stairs up towards where Mrs. McFadden's office was, to ask her if she'd seen anything.
Sam put a finger to her lips at Tucker behind her; she was hearing something. They crept towards the door of Mrs. McFadden's office at the end of the hall, hearing her yelling behind a closed door.
"Perfect!" she was yelling. "Just perfect. You're telling me the Ghost Kid, Danny Phantom, is on to you now?"
"He only saw me with one fridge, Hester," came a voice. "I lost the fridge, but I lost him, too. You don't need to worry about him coming here."
That's Filch! Sam mouthed at Tucker. Tucker nodded.
"This is just wonderful," Mrs. McFadden groaned. "Just perfect! First, the flood comes in the middle of my brilliant plan to get more business. Then, Danny Phantom found you. What if he traces you back here?"
"Please, darling, don't worry," Filch said.
Darling? Tucker mouthed at Sam.
"I'll take care of all this. Don't get your pretty little face get wet."
Sam risked a peek through the window of the door and saw Filch kiss Mrs. McFadden. But when Filch floated away again, the woman saw movement at the door and caught sight of Sam's head disappearing. "SOMEONE'S HERE!" she screamed.
Filch barged through the door, freezing when he saw Sam pointing the thermos at him. "D-Don't fire!" he said, putting his hands up.
Mrs. McFadden slammed the door open, and gasped. "No!" she shouted, throwing herself in front of Filch. "Don't take him!"
"That was clever of you," Tucker said, pushing his glasses up his nose. "You had your little ghost lover stealing refrigerators so that people would give you more business to replace the fridges. It was a smart plan, I'll give you that."
Mrs. McFadden turned pale. "Don't tell anyone," she said, her knees wobbling. "They'll patrol me and they won't ever let me see him again…"
"Your story of true love would be a lot more touching," Sam interrupted, "if you hadn't been committing crimes together."
"I swear, it'll stop," Mrs. McFadden promised. "You know where to find me if it starts happening again. Please. Just let me live in peace with him."
"Let's go!" Filch yelled, grabbing her legs and pulling her through the floor. Sam and Tucker raced down the stairs, and then down another flight to the basement, the door to which was now open. They stopped when they saw—a ghost portal? Water was pouring through it just like it poured through the portal at Fenton Works.
"Whoa," Sam said. "Didn't expect that one."
"That explains how Filch kept getting out," Tucker said.
"Should we deactivate it?"
"Nah," Tucker said. "I don't want to trap her in the Ghost Zone forever."
"How about the Specter Speeder's Real World Item detector?" Sam suggested.
"Oh, yeah! We'll be able to track her wherever she goes. And if she comes back into the real world, we can track Filch! I think the speeder will fit down these stairs."
"Looks like this case is about to be closed," Sam said, and they darted up the stairs again.
As they burst outside through the door, they saw Mrs. McFadden laughing as Filch flew towards the Specter Speeder. "You're too late!" she cackled. "You should never have left your vehicle running next to the Ghost of Theft!"
Filch grabbed the handle of the door, and suddenly yelped in extreme pain from the electrical shock that coursed through his body. "HESTEEEER!" he yelled.
"No!" she screamed, running at him and prying him away from the handle. "Filch! What did you do to my Filch?"
Sam pulled the cap off of the Fenton Thermos; it sucked in the injured ghost as Hester screamed.
"…Sam…?" Tucker said, staring through the window of the Speeder. "There's… a Scale 6.8 ectoplasmic entity… charging directly at us."
"That's not Danny, is it," Sam whispered, looking around to see a bulge in the water moving towards them at a very high speed.
"Heck, I'd even be happy to see that it was Vlad," Tucker whispered back as the wave broke around the enormous ghost Riptide, with a brand-new head on his shoulders.
"YOU ARE THE ONE WITH THE PORTAL!" Riptide pointed at Hester McFadden, who screamed and ran inside, cowering with her hands over her head.
Riptide blasted in, ignoring Mrs. McFadden and barging down the stairs. Explosions were heard from underneath the floor; Riptide was destroying the portal.
"Come with us!" Sam shouted, running into the building, grabbing Mrs. McFadden's arm, and pulling her towards the Speeder. She threw the hysterical woman in the side door and then dove in herself, closing it as Tucker started it up and blasted away. Riptide burst through the roof of the building, laughing, but did not pursue them.
"Darn," Tucker said as Sam clambered into the front. "I wanted him to chase us. Would've been a great opportunity to test out the features on this baby."
"I am extremely relieved he isn't chasing us," Sam said, her eyes narrowing. "We should contact—um, our friend, and tell him what's going on." She glanced over at Mrs. McFadden in the back; she didn't want the woman to hear more than necessary.
"Then let's get back to the lab and see the progress," Tucker said. "But first… I think we have a delivery to make at the local police station." Mrs. McFadden groaned as Tucker continued, "You can explain to them what's been going on… or we can keep your boyfriend in here forever." He took Sam's Fenton Thermos and shook it around.
"I'll tell them," Mrs. McFadden said, leaning sideways against the wall.
"Then our work here is done," Sam said, giving Tucker a high-five as they zoomed towards the police station.
Riptide, meanwhile, focused his sight, and growled. "There is another portal," he grumbled, sneering.
"Well," Danny said, snapping his phone shut. "That explains a lot about where the ghosts come from when the Fenton Portal is closed. Noah, Sam and Tucker finished their mission, and it was successful."
"That's great," Noah said, not taking his eyes off of his work. "I've only got a bit more to go. This is going way, way faster than I thought; I ended up not even having to reposition the Plasmodulator!"
"Um, great," Danny said. "When do you think it'll be done?"
"As soon as I can get rid of the—" He suddenly threw his head backwards as a piece of metal shot out from the device he was working on. It struck the wall and flew through the portal into the Ghost Zone. "That's okay, I didn't need that anyway. I'd say about ten more minutes!"
True to his word, in about ten minutes, he was putting the metal panels back up on the sides. Danny got a call from Sam, and when she told him she and Tucker were right outside, he left for a moment to phase the Specter Speeder back through the floor into the lab. Once that was done, Noah held up the device with a big smile.
"That's it!" he said as Danny walked back through the wall of the garage with Sam and Tucker. "Danny, you just have to put one hand on the surface of the water and the other on this machine, and then freeze it as you normally would!"
"Right here?" Danny asked.
"I don't see why not," Noah said. "Hit it!"
Danny pressed a hand to the machine just as a rumbling shook the entire building.
"Oh, man," Danny said as his ghost sense went off, along with Noah's.
A larger wave of water came crashing down the stairs, and formed itself into Riptide, who took up most of the room. "YOU HAD THE OTHER PORTAL!" Riptide roared.
"Danny, now!" Noah shouted; Danny slammed his other hand into the water and concentrated on his frost abilities.
The machine beeped and started shaking; as Riptide advanced on the portal, his feet were suddenly stuck in the ground. He looked down and howled with rage.
The ice quickly shot up the stairs; a crackling sound everywhere told him that every drop of water in the flood was freezing solid. Riptide looked around feebly as he started to shrink—this seemed to be an attribute of the stronger ghosts. When they were weakened, they shrank. Riptide became so small that he would have fit inside the thermos without activating it.
Danny stood when he felt his powers stretched too far. He suddenly dropped to the ground and transformed back, and was still.
"Whoa!" Noah said, running over to Danny and checking his pulse. "He's fainted from the stress. Didn't expect that."
Riptide was still struggling with his feet, and eventually he popped out of the icy hold. He had no water powers left, it seemed like, since there was no water in sight. He instead shot an energy blast at Danny.
Noah reacted quickly. The training was paying off. He set up a shield of energy, which blocked the blow, and then he reciprocated with a blast of his own. It sent Riptide spiraling into the wall. Noah then unhooked the necklace off of Danny and he threw it at Riptide, who was charging back at them.
The necklace struck Riptide and sucked him in; it didn't take long, since the ghost was so small. Noah caught the necklace again, and grinned at it, shivering from the cold that the ice had cast over the room.
"Noah!" Sam said. "You did it! You beat Riptide!"
Noah shrugged, his grin faltering. "He was weak, though. It wasn't really me."
"But you weakened him," Sam reminded him. "See? Your talents don't have to be exercised right now in the physical ghost fights. You did so well building a machine to exploit Riptide's weakness!"
"I… guess so," Noah said, smiling a little bit more. "Yeah! I did beat him, didn't I?"
"Yep," Tucker said, his teeth chattering. "Now… h-h-how do we get r-r-rid of this stuff?"
"I think I know," Noah said. He took the ecto-converter from Danny and placed it back on the lab table; he pressed his other hand to the ice and imagined heat.
The ice melted at his touch; the warmth spread to the rest of the ice and soon, Noah could somehow sense through his touch that there was no ice left. He lifted his hand away from the ecto-converter, and enjoyed the spa-like water closest to the source in the lab.
"Sweet," Noah said, as he collapsed from exhaustion like Danny had.
"That was fantastic," Sam said. "I've never felt more victorious."
"We did a good job," Tucker said. "Now we just need to wait for the waters to recede, from flowing through into the Ghost Zone and from normal evaporation and stuff. Whatever usually makes floods go away."
"I think there's been a lot of damage from this one," Sam said.
Tucker shrugged. "That's all right. The insurance companies haven't stopped covering Amity Park yet."
Sam and Tucker stood awkwardly for a moment.
"Why doesn't it feel complete, though?" Sam asked.
Tucker pointed down at Danny, who was still passed out. "Usually he makes some sort of a pun, and then we laugh, and then it feels like it's over."
"Oh," Sam said. "I guess we have to take care of that, too."
"Well… um…" Tucker scratched his hair under his beret. "Water you waiting for?"
"Ice to have met you, Riptide?" Sam tried.
"Oh!" Tucker said snapping his fingers. "It should've been, 'Water you wading for!' You know, like wading through the water? Come on, that's good!"
"I think we need to work on that, too."
"Water you talking about, Sam? Are you saying we're just getting our feet wet?"
"Shut up, Tucker."
-THE END-