A/N: Hello, again, y'all! Hope you've had a good week. I certainly have had a great week, and now it's time for an even greater night since it's time for an update! Things are stirring up to say the least, but did you really expect Spectra and Bertrand to pull it right off right away? Tsk, tsk, I'm sorry to hear that! I never doubted for a minute that they would. It would just take more time, that's all! Anyhow, enough droll banter! Time for Chapter 14. Remember IDNOAC and enjoy!
TrueHeart—Chapter 14—Uncomfortable Adjustment
Bertrand, along with the still spellbound lynx, hurriedly phased out of the school and headed to where Spectra and he had agreed to meet. He wasn't eager to tell her the news.
"There you are!" Spectra sweetly said with a sly half-frown. "How did it go?"
Bertrand knew that her sweetness was insincere.
"Swimmingly, as in, we drowned," he dead-panned, as he morphed back to his human form. "Much as I hate to admit it, we have more work to do."
He quickly filled her in on the details of the events with all the humans involved in their fiasco.
Finally, he ended with, "As you can see, the lynx is safely here, but I don't know what happened to the dove."
Before he could say anything more, Spectra presented Sarah to him. She had stashed the little bird in one of the bushes, bound and gagged by ethereal purple rings.
Bertrand's eyebrows rose in surprise and he uttered, "Did the potion…"
"Yes, it did," she interrupted him, and she frowned in defeat. "Now what are we going to do?"
"Well, it's just as well that it wore off. Their 'Romeo and Juliet' acts were more like 'Ricky and Lucy Ricardo'. Excruciatingly horrible! Still, I don't think it was a total loss."
Spectra's eyes brightened and he continued with a wry smile, "Some seed has been sown, at least."
"What do you mean?" Spectra asked, getting excited once more.
"Let's get back to your lair and I'll explain," he suggested.
She nodded and grabbed the dove, while Bertrand grabbed the lynx. And all four left for Spectra's lair.
"OK, spit it out, Bertrand," Spectra said before licking her lips. "And this had better be good."
"Just a minute," he said as he went to the back room. In no time, he had returned holding two ghost cages, one big enough for each of their two 'guests'. He promptly commanded the lynx to put himself into the larger of the two cages, which the wildcat dutifully did. Bertrand quickly secured the door and turned to Penelope.
Spectra smiled at the idea and brought the still-bound Sarah closer to the ghost bird cage. "Don't even say one word and get in!" she warned the bird just as she dispelled the spectral bands binding the bird. She opened the cage door.
But she need not have commanded the young bird to go in or remain quiet. Sarah was so distraught at trusting another being with such disastrous results that she quickly flew into the cage, and threw herself into a corner. Then she dropped her head to her bosom and covered it with one of her wings and was silent. But no matter how upset she was, she could still hear most of Bertrand and Spectra's conversation.
"Now, that should hold them until we use them again!" Bertrand said with a wicked smile.
"But you said they did a terrible job! Besides, there's no more hypnotizing potion."
"Check, and check, Penelope!" Bertrand answered with a cluck. "But you forgot about 'love'. Those two over there love each other, right?"
"Yeah, too bad," Spectra said with disgust.
"No, it's 'too good'…he corrected her. "I bet that we can get the lynx to do exactly as we say. That is, if he knows that we'll hurt his love if he doesn't!"
"Oooh! I do love you, Bertrand," she replied, actually giggling at his idea.
"Why, Penelope, that's one of the nicest things you have ever said to me!" he replied with a satisfied smile.
She frowned a little and waving her hand dismissively, remarked, "Well, don't get carried away with that. It's just an expression."
"Oh," he answered, his face instantly dropping to a disappointed frown. He shrugged it off right away, however, and added, "Anyhow, if you can get the lynx to willingly overshadow that same human boy teen—the Armen kid-things might actually work out. First of all, Derek will act more naturally, rather than the dazed drone that he was under the effects of the potion. Plus, we can get that teen girl who likes the Armen kid so jealous that when we set-up the real 'scenario' to split up the Ghost Kid and his girlfriend, it'll work this time!"
"Sound a little too complicated to me," Spectra growled.
"It is. But you know that love is always complicated…" He paused before continuing, "You still want the grand prize of those hefty ghost-kid pheromones, while devastating the kid enough that he'll leave us alone to gather even more of the stuff, don't you?"
"Of course, I do!"
"All right, then. It's going to take a little more time and a little more work, that's all. But I also think we'll get it perfectly this time. In fact, like I said before, since sucking those human pheromones from him will make his ghost ones unstable, we just might be able to weaken him enough to put him out of commission permanently! And when I mean, permanently, I mean as in, out of complete existence!"
But I don't want to just waste him right away! I want all his ghostly pheromones first!" Spectra objected. She then frowned when she saw Bertrand suddenly smile at her comment.
He saw her scowl but kept his smug smile as he replied, "Well, we can actually 'have our cake and eat it too' this time!"
The shadow ghost raised an irritated eyebrow at him.
He caught her drift and knew what she meant by that response. But at this point, he didn't care that it annoyed her when he used too many 'catch phrases'. He ignored her reaction and without losing his smile, continued, "His ghostly pheromones are, of course, our choice samples. But we can't have him at his normal power or else we might not be able to control him. So, we have to weaken him first, before we can harvest what we want. And, of course, we have to keep him in that weakened state to keep him under our control so that we can take what we want."
"Can you get to the point?" Spectra suddenly interrupted with a roll of her eyes.
This time he scowled in annoyance. "I'm getting to that!" he hissed, before continuing, "As I told you before, the Ghost Kid's ghostly and human pheromones are intertwined tightly to each other. We will have to pull them apart to weaken him, yet we can suck them all up once they're separated and still get all that desired effects from his ghostly ones. And once he's weakened enough, we can suck up his ghostly pheromones directly without separating his human and ghostly ones. It's just a little of a balancing act, that's all. We have to siphon enough to keep him weak and then we can get the big bang for our bucks just as we want. But, my earlier point is that after we suck him dry, we can get a bonus to it all: to get rid of him permanently!"
Spectra finally smiled after his explanation. But she commented, "Well, I'll want his pheromones forever, so let's keep that from happening for as long as possible…the 'sucking dry' part, that is. Still, it's good to know that we can permanently get rid of him, when the time comes, such as if he gets too hard to handle, or is totally useless to us."
Finally, Bertrand grinned in satisfaction.
Sarah's eyes widened with that comment, but she did not move from her position. But already, she couldn't help but be worried for this 'ghost kid' to which they were referring. And she wondered who that could be. It was very obvious to her that Spectra and her servant wanted him destroyed. She shivered at the thought.
Spectra, meanwhile, smiled in delight at their new plan.
But Bertrand wasn't through yet. "In the meantime, I have some good news! I did manage to scrape up a small supply of some choice pheromones. I couldn't resist it! Teenagers are always ready to break up their relationships!"
He pulled out the little machine and pointed out the vial. Its reservoir contained a light purple substance within it. "Of course, it won't last that long, but it's a start. And don't worry, I already had mine."
Spectra didn't respond to his last comment, but smiled as the lavender gas enveloped her.
School was way over and it was now a couple of hours after dinner. The two couples sat next to each other in Danny's room in complete silence. Tucker had asked Danny if he could bring Valerie with him when they had met up at their usual hang out time. Danny, of course, hadn't objected. But it was the first time since they spent more than fifteen minutes in each other's company, it even at school—as couples, that is. And, of course, it was also the very first time all four of them were in Danny's house as couples, even if they ended up being very uncomfortable with that.
Tucker was the first to brave a suggestion, "Does anyone want to go to a movie?"
"Naw!"
"No!"
"Na-uh!"
The tense answer from each of the other three was obvious. Still, Tucker pressed on, "How about going bowling?"
Danny shook his head; Sam shrugged and Valerie frowned. This time, all of them did so without a word.
"Then how about some video games?" Tucker suggested, trying not to get flustered. "I just got the new Zombies IV game; and this time, I heard that all the kids get to blow up all their zombie teachers!"
But the other three just looked at him in dead silence.
This time, Tucker did get anxious and only addressing Danny and Sam, he whined, "C'mon, guys! We never had this much trouble before!"
Valerie immediately picked up on what he said and jumped to conclusions on what he meant by that. He was right! They—the three of them—never had that much trouble deciding what to do before; and that was because she usually wasn't with them.
Suddenly, she felt even more uncomfortable. She blurted out, "Uhm. Hey, Tucker. Danny. Sam. I think I need to get going! Not that I haven't had a good time, you know. It's just that it's getting late and I still haven't even thought about that lame paper Lancer assigned."
She then got up as she spoke and headed to the bedroom door. "Maybe we can get to together again tomorrow?"
Tucker immediately got up and followed her, saying, "Do you really have to go, Valerie? You just got here!"
But the fact was that they had all been here in either awkward silence or intermittent forced conversation for a little more than an hour.
Valerie and Tucker continued onward, leaving Danny and Sam in the room as they did. They reached the stairs and headed down them toward the entrance to Danny's home just as Valerie said, "That's nice, Tucker. But, yes, I do have to go. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for me to have come."
"Don't say that," he objected, just as they stepped out of the house. "It was a great idea! And about time!"
"But how come I don't get those same vibes from Danny and Sam?" she insisted, stopping when they were at the bottom of the outside stairs.
Tucker didn't answer her right away. He knew the real reason, of course. Sam was uptight about Valerie's being the 'Red Huntress'; and Danny didn't want to upset Sam by making his girlfriend be cheerful to Valerie when Sam didn't want to do that at all.
So, Tucker told a white lie. "They'll come around. Took me a while to adjust to them being a couple, too, you know. And I'm sure it'll take them awhile to adjust to us being a couple. So don't worry, OK?"
"OK, Tucker, if you say so," she replied with a weak smile.
He smiled back and asked, "Can I walk you home?"
"That would be nice, thanks!" she began, before a very strange noise suddenly eked out of her.
"What's that?" Tucker asked, frowning in confusion. He had never heard that before.
Now it was her turn to tell her white lie, "Oh, that?" she began with a nervous laugh.
"T-That's my new cell phone! Weird ring tones they have nowadays, huh? I'm sorry, but I gotta go. I'm sure this is important. It might be my boss calling me to do some 'extra work'. But it's just a little gho—I mean, I gotta go."
Tucker's frown turned into a weak smile. He was finally clued in with her last statement. That noise must have been her ghost alert going off. He replied, "Yeah, weird. Well, you better get going and answer it, K?"
He gave her a quick peck and turned abruptly on his heels and headed away from her. He wanted to give her plenty of distance between them so that she could answer her 'cell phone'.
He quickly returned to Danny's house. As he neared Danny's room, his shoulders slumped. He could hear the frantic talk between his two best friends. But he couldn't make out what they were saying. Finally, they startled when they saw him suddenly enter the room.
"Tell him!" Danny insisted under his breath while slightly jabbing Sam in her ribs.
"OK! OK!" she growled softly back, shooting an annoyed frown back at her boyfriend. She turned to Tucker and said, "Uh, Tucker, look. I'm sorry…"
But he gently interrupted her, "That's OK, Sam. Danny. I really kinda understand. It's just that, well, I guess I need to tell you both something. I'm getting, uhm, more serious about Valerie."
"We kinda already noticed that, Tucker," Danny replied with a weak smile.
"You did?" he said, his eyes blinking in disbelief. He, of course, like most people when they first begin falling in love, hadn't noticed the change in his behavior. "But why didn't you say something?"
Danny answered him. "Because we didn't want to pressure you, dude. We kinda understand all the craziness that happens when you finally realize that you got someone special right next to you."
He glanced back at Sam and she smiled and blushed.
"Oh," Tucker said before falling speechless.
The three best friends looked at each other, sharing a few more awkward moments before Danny spoke again, "So, anyhow, let's not worry about it too much, OK? Compared to all the other crazy stuff we've gone through together, this kind of craziness isn't too crazy, uhm, well, you know what I mean! We'll get through this without a sweat compared to everything else." He ended with smile, trying to make his friend feel better.
Agreeing with Danny, Sam simply nodded and smiled weakly at Tucker.
When Tucker saw their encouraging smiles, he smiled back and said, "Thanks, guys! I just knew that you would try to get along with her! And speaking of 'getting along', she said that she's gonna invite all of us to her sixteenth birthday party! And she say's it's going to be a surprise!"
"A surprise?" Danny began, confused. "I thought it was supposed to be the other…"
"Yeah, me, too," Tucker said, interrupting him. "But she said that she's only inviting us and she was the one who was going to give us a surprise!"
"What's that all about?" Sam immediately asked herself, her forehead unconsciously scrunching up. She couldn't even remember the last time she or her best friends were invited to a birthday party. Er, except for Danny's going to 'Dash's Bash' and all of them almost going to Paulina's quinceañera when they were freshmen, but those didn't count. After all, those two jerks had agenda when they had invited them.
Still, Sam was still wondering if this was legit or not. If it were, it would be the first birthday party with other kids since they were in elementary school. Not that it bothered the three best friends much anymore. It had been several years since they had 'formal' birthday parties. In fact, since they were eight. Before that, they had gotten used to their own very small parties. And when she said 'very small parties', she had meant that just the three of them had attended each other's parties. Before that, they had no real party, because no one would come to their parties before the three best friends met. There was sorta of a good reason for that, and it was why they had become best friends in the first place.
She suddenly thought about their very first birthday party together. The one only the three of them attended. When they had just finished the last part of their year in kindergarten and were turning six. They had already found out that they all shared the same birthday. In the summer. June thirteenth to be precise. They found out in a hurry, especially when they got into 'real' school, that that was not a popular time to have birthday parties. Not when all the other kids were out forgetting about school with their wide open free time and rushed vacations just as school let out for the summer.
It didn't help that even in kindergarten, all three of them were not in the popular crowd. Danny was clumsy; Sam didn't like playing with girly toys; and Tucker was usually absorbed in one of his kiddie video games. Still, they somehow felt connected, sharing a very unpopular birthday and accepting each other's quirks because of it. So, in the end, they kept to themselves and when it was time to celebrate their birthdays, they had begged their parents to have their birthday parties with their new best friends.
And they had been best friends since.
Sam was pulled out of her thoughts when Danny asked, "When is it going to be?"
"In about a week. Don't know any other details, but I'm sure Valerie will let us all know soon."
"Are you sure she wants me to go?" Sam queried. "I haven't gotten an invitation yet."
"Sure she does, Sam," Tucker said with a frown. "She's probably going to send them soon. You know how busy she is."
"Well, no matter how we get there, it's about time! And I'm sure we'll all have a lot of fun!" Danny said with a smile. Then looking at his girl with a 'you-know-what-I-mean' kind of frown, he added, "And it'll give us another chance to roll with it all, huh?"
Sam frowned back at him, but said, "Yeah, Tucker. If she wants us to go, I'll come."
Danny then cheerfully piped in. "Good! Then it's settled! So, Tuck, how about you breaking out that new video game you just got?"
And all three best friends enjoyed the rest of the evening.