BVQA: Well, it took a while, but we're free!

Dani: *has lost her mind entirely and is muttering to herself* She just kept. . . kept rambling. . . she went on and on. . . just. . . rambling about. . . characters and fangirling and. . . and. . . who the heck is Aido Hanabusa and why. . . why was she telling me he's as hot as Zero and. . . and L and. . . Zim and Dib and. . . Ichijo and. . . Kain and. . . the Doctor. . . Death The Kid and Black*star and Soul and. . . Vladimir Tod and Joss and. . . why. . . she just rambled so much. . .

BVQA: Heh. Guess she couldn't stand listening to me. Uh. . . LOOK! ANOTHER CHAPTER!

Dani, Sid, and Youngblood sat in a circle in the center of Dani's cell. The cell in question now looked more like a cross between a goth-punk club and a costume ball, something that was probably going to get noticed at some point, but Dani and her new friends were too wrapped up in what they were doing to care.

"Here, your friend Tucker told me you needed to see this." Youngblood said, holding out a small, handheld computer to Dani. She took it and flicked the on switch at the top, watching as the little device powered up.

"Nice kid, your friend Tucker." Sid said thoughtfully. "Good with Esperanto."

Dani chucked. "Geeks united, huh?" Youngblood laughed at her comment. Sid did not.

"I take great offense at that!" He huffed. "Tucker is a geek. I am a nerd. You will find that there's a huge difference!"

Youngblood laughed some more, but Dani leaned her head on her hand and listened in curiosity. "What is the difference?"

Sid, looking very pleased to be the center of attention, quickly elaborated. "Geeks are synced up with modern technology and nerds are the ones you'll se with a book glued to their face. We might not be the hippest people, but we're good when you need to get out of a scrape."

"Looks like you'll be pretty helpful now, then." Dani said dryly, then the computer in her hands sparked to life and she saw four familiar faces on it.

"Lemmie see!" Tucker complained, sandwiched between Sam and Danny and competing for screen space. "I need to be able to reach the computer!"

"But it's my sister!" Danny replied, shoving at Sam to try to monopolize the space.

"Both of you, just shut up!" Sam snapped. "Danny, stop standing on Tucker's foot or I'll hit you."

"Will you three move?" Valerie growled from behind all of them- in full Red Huntress gear. "I'm worried about her too! And where's Phantom? He was supposed to be here to help, if he's not too scared to show up in the same house as me."

"He was here before you were." Danny lied quickly. "He had to leave right after, the GIW are still after him."

Valerie's scowl stayed. "I would've expected him to be taking full advantage of our temporary truce, but I guess he's prepared to leave Danielle in danger."

"He is not!" Dani said. "He just knows that he won't be any help if he's captured!"

The people onscreen continued bickering as if they hadn't heard. With a jolt, Dani realized that the message had been recorded previously- Dani could no more talk to the people onscreen than she could sit on a cloud.

"Quarrelsome bunch, aren't they?" Sid remarked.

"Yeah, but that Huntress girl really packs a punch." Youngblood said nervously, rubbing his arm where Dani could see the faint outline of a bruise.

"Shh!" Dani hissed, then turned back to the screen just in time to see the faint ripple in the air as Danny created an invisible, intangible duplicate.

Valerie continued ranting. ". . . and furthermore, I can't see how he and Danielle can even be related! She's sweet and nice and he's-"

"Standing right behind you." Danny's duplicate said, and Valerie spun to face him as he popped back into the visible spectrum. "Sorry I'm late. Are we going to brief Danielle or not?"

Valerie looked like she was going to start arguing again so Tucker coughed loudly and wormed his way up to the keyboard, rapping out a complex-sounding command. "Everyone, just say hi to Dani while I get this ready. She's probably confused as heck right now."

"Hi, Danielle!" Valerie beamed at the camera. "I'm in a temporary truce with your cousin, so that ought to make you happy!"

"Yeah, we're breathing the same air and I haven't killed you yet. Life is good." Danny-double muttered under his breath. Danielle could see Danny-original mouthing the same words. A side-effect of being in the same room as your duplicate was the fact that people might notice the fact that you frequently said the exact same things, but Danny was facing away from Valerie so she couldn't see.

"Was that a threat?" Valerie growled at the Danny-duplicate, but he just frowned and looked away.

They must've had a fight. Dani thought. Again. She wished Danny and Valerie could just be friends and work together. After all, they were in the same profession. Danny could use the help, and Valerie could stand to take some time off fighting Danny to get her grades up. Not that Dani would ever admit that she'd had Tucker hack the school server for her just so she could sneak a peek at Valerie's (and then Danny's) grades.

"Done!" Tucker said joyfully, breaking up the tension of the moment. "Dani, I need you to watch this carefully. This is the feed that got sent out from the television station you were in, and I'm pretty sure it's not what actually happened."

Sam nudged him.

"Uh, I'm absolutely certain it's not what actually happened." He corrected himself. "Certain."

He quickly swiped a few buttons on the keyboard and the screen filled with a different image- one of Dani sitting with Katey in the recording room. Dani flinched at her full-length curtain of black hair- something she greatly missed. Subconsciously, her fingers found the edges of her new cut and she scowled, feeling the tears starting up again.

Two hands grasped hers and pulled it gently away from the ends of her hair. She looked up to see Youngblood and Sid looking at her with concern.

"Danielle, stop it. You are going to drive yourself insane if you keep doing that. Besides. . . you still look beautifu. . . um, very pretty." Sid said nervously, like he wasn't comfortable giving her orders. . . or compliments.

"Yeah, Dani, it looks fine!" Youngblood said in a much more confident tone. Dani caught them exchanging a look when they though she wasn't watching them, though, and it spoke volumes.

"You two are the worst liars ever." Dani sniffed, then pulled them both into a teary hug.

Their reactions were. . . interesting. Sid immediately went stiff, completely uncomfortable, then awkwardly reached up and patted her on the back a couple times. Youngblood twitched violently before pushing her away.

"You still have cooties!" He shrieked.

"Sorry." Dani said with a laugh, cheered up immensely. She returned her attention to the video.

"Uh. . . hi. . . I'm Dani-with-an-i Fenton-Phantom. But I guess you already knew that. . ." She was saying. Her voice sounded different onscreen, and Dani found herself criticizing her every move. Why was she twisting her hands together so desperately in her lap? Oh, right, because she had been nervous.

Dani knew what came next- she started talking about why she didn't consider herself a superhero. But instead, the screen went black. People started screaming.

"What?" Dani yelled. "This didn't happen!"

"Shh," Youngblood began, "You'll miss the important bit."

The lights flicked back on, and there was Katey alright. . . but the Dani of last week had left the building.

"Where am I?" Dani whispered.

"Right then? Robbing a bank, according to security camera. This video is a forgery, but, unfortunately, there is no way to disprove it." Sid said quietly.

'Where's Dani?' Katey was yelling. Youngblood reached out and paused the image, stopping the chaos. "It keeps going like that until there's another blackout, and you're back like nothing happened, and then the GIW bust in and boom!"

Dani nodded slowly. "But I didn't. . It wasn't. . ." Dani was about to give up and start tearing out her already-damaged hair in frustration when Cujo whimpered and placed his paws on the screen.

"No, Cujo, don't touch. . ." Dani began, moving Cujo's paws off the handheld. Then, with a gasp, she realized what Cujo had noticed before she had. "That's not Katey." Dani said with certainty.

"Whadia mean, it's not Katey?" Youngblood asked in confusion. "Of corse it is."

"No," Dani said, "Look at her eyes."

Whoever said 'the eyes are the windows to the soul' was either from Amity Park or a ghost themselves. In the face of, say, a yeti-like ghost, they could still convey kindness. Partially covered by green spiky hair, they could still smirk up at you from dimpled cheeks. Even gray eyes could show you sadness and a sort of strength, a sense of right and wrong.

They were also handy to tell when someone was being overshadowed.

"Who's a clever dog, then?" Dani whispered to Cujo, because instead of the dark green eyes that Dani had admired when she'd first met Katey there was a glowing green.

"It's got to be a ghost controlling her." Sid confirmed. "Same color as your eyes, actually."

"But I've never met any other ghosts with my eye color." Dani said.

Youngblood and Sid exchanged another one of their telepathic guy-glances and Dani realized they were hiding something from her. She targeted the weakest link in the chain.

"Youngblood, I'll infect you with cooties if you don't tell me what you're thinking." She said sternly. Youngblood's face adopted a deer-in-the-headlights look.

"Uh. . . uh. . ." He said. "Uh. . ."

"Your brother has the same eye color as you." Poindexter said flatly. . . but he avoided Dani's betrayed gaze. "What? We were both thinking it." He said to Youngblood.

"Not Danny. . . he wouldn't. . ." Dani whispered.

LINE BREAK

"Oh, but I would." A glowing, silver-haired youth said quietly, perched on a chair in Vlad's lab. He blew his hair out of his eyes and turned to the slim girl sitting next to him. "This is rather entertaining, isn't it. . . Sam?"

"I don't even know why she's here." An african-american boy in a red beret said sulkily. "I was the one who hacked the video feed."

"Shh, she's starting to cry." The silver-haired boy said, and all three watched with smiles on their faces as Dani's tears splattered onto the dusty prison ground.

"Disgusting clone." The pale goth muttered. "Shouldn't have been created."

"Waste of a test tube, if you ask me." Said Dani's 'brother'. "Come on, there's smoothies upstairs."

BVQA: Well. . . didn't know THAT was going to happen when I started writing this. . .Dun-dun-dun! I'M SO EVIL! Haha, review with what the heck you think's going on here.

Dani: And she went on. . . and on. . . and just. . . NO! NOT THE PUPPETS AGAIN!

BVQA: Um. . . reviews also help buy anti-crazy pills for Danielle!