BVQA: *gasps* Could it be. . . a chapter where something actually happens?

Dani: *still a little loopy from the anti-crazy pills* Whoooooo. . . Imma ghostie. . . la la la lalala. . .

BVQA: Yeah, sorry people (and by people I mean, like, three of you). I realize that it was probably pretty boring just to watch Dani in prison. . . uh, I mean the GIW holding pen. . . and that last cliffie was just mean of me. But in this chapter, stuff actually happens! So. . . enough delaying, here you go!

Dani was so tired of crying. She felt like it was all she'd been doing for her whole life. From one thing or another, she always wound up spraying tears all over everything. When Vlad betrayed her? She cried. When she got tossed into this prison? She cried. Even the stupid haircut had made her cry. She didn't like feeling this. . . weak.

Why was she crying now, anyway? All Sid and Youngblood had done was make an observation about her and Danny's eyes matching perfectly. She shouldn't be sobbing into Sid's shoulder (didn't want to give Youngblood cooties, after all) while Youngblood awkwardly patted her on the back.

"Dani? Dani, it's ok. We're not saying your brother has anything to do with this." Youngblood reasoned. Under his breath- like he was hoping Dani had suddenly gone deaf- he mumbled something to Sid about kicking his butt later for having upset Danielle. Sid mumbled something back about Youngblood being a bully sometimes.

"Danielle, I'm aware of your and your brother's strong love for each other. I'm certain he would do nothing to harm you." Sid comforted her. Dani sniffed, nodded, and sat back, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Sid handed her his handkerchief- the same one that he'd used to 'decontaminate' Youngblood- and Dani blew her now-stuffy nose loudly before handing it back to him. She smiled weakly at her two friends, noting how ridiculous they both looked. Sid's thin button-down shirt was now soaked through on his shoulder from her tears, and Youngblood was looking at her like he was scared she was going to shatter into a million pieces. With the way Dani was feeling right now, she was almost sure that that was a possibility.

After a couple deep breaths, Dani stood up, stretched, and adopted her usual devil-may-care attitude.

"So!" She said loudly, making the two boys jump, "We now know Katey was being overshadowed by an unknown ghost. What does this tell us?"

"That she was part of some larger-" Sid began answering her, but Dani was on a roll and was unwilling to be interrupted.

"That she was part of some larger plan!" Dani cried. "Obviously to imprison me or to hut my brother. However, seeing that all ghosts have a hatred of the GIW, I don't think anyone would collaborate with them. That rules out everyone from the ghost zone, so the only other person I can think of is. . . Vlad!"

"Is this normal for a girl? To have mood swings like this?" Youngblood whispered to Sid. . . obviously under the impression that Dani couldn't hear him.

"I'm. . . not sure." Sid whispered back.

"You're not sure? You, the nerd who knows everything, is not sure?" Youngblood whispered back in disbelief.

"If you want someone to recite an encyclopedia from memory, I'm your man. But questions about the other gender are best asked of someone else." Sid paused. "Not that I believe any man can fully understand the complexities of the female species."

"Maybe it's puberty." Youngblood mused. Dani rolled her eyes. Boys. . !

"Hey! We're beating the bad guy here!" Dani reminded them.

"Right." Sid and Youngblood chorused.

"Now, all I need is to get out of this stupid prison. . ." Dani said thoughtfully.

"Hey, if we could bust you out, we would," Youngblood reminded her, "But that stupid jumpsuit you're wearing isn't going to let us. Bring it outside of the prison and it'll let them know immediately."

"You'll just have to wait for your trial this afternoon." Sid said.

Dani blinked. "I have a trial this afternoon?" She asked dumbly.

"You didn't tell her?" Sid asked exasperatedly of Youngblood. Youngblood blushed and stammered a few sentences under Dani and Sid's intense glares.

"Explain. Now." Dani demanded.

"I'm sorry! I just forgot!" Youngblood whimpered. "Would I be able to make it up to you with a ton of party games and a piece of cake the size of your head?"

Dani grinned. "I do like cake. . ."

"Let's get this party started, then!" Youngblood said happily.

The next few hours were spent doing just what Youngblood had promised. . . and more. Words alone could not communicate the sight of Dani and Youngblood having a cake-eating contest, or of Poindexter winning every game of clue within the first round, the hysterical laughter when Youngblood fell into the bucket they'd been using to bob for apples, the terror of the unlucky ghost who accidentally pinned the tail on Cujo rather than the picture of a donkey that had been stuck on the wall, karaoke with Ember, a water balloon fight that tore down a wall, and accepting a dare to eat an ice cream sundae without using her hands. Dani wished it would never end.

But, all too soon, Bones (Youngblood's parrot/horse/whatever else came to mind) came swooping into the room from the hallway where he'd been keeping watch, warning everyone that the GIW had (finally) noticed their party and were coming. Quicker than Dani thought possible, the assembled ghosts picked up the decorations and slipped through a portal that Wulf made into the ghost zone. Soon, only Dani, Sid, and Youngblood were left.

"Good luck at your trial." Youngblood said. "We'll be there. You might not be able to see us. . . but we'll be there."

"My most sincere hopes that you'll prevail." Sid said. Dani resisted the strong urge to burst into tears again and instead dragged both of the morons into a lung-crushing hug. Yes, they were complete dorks. . . but they were her dorks, and she knew she'd be able to count on her best friends in the future.

Dani reluctantly released them after Youngblood turned a funny purplish color and Poindexter's glasses started to slip off his face. Then- with a smile and a almost- but not quite- cheerful wave, Dani sent them off through the portal with a gentle shove. A moment later, the portal closed up and the GIW burst into her cell a fraction of a second afterwards. Dani, having recovered her defiant spirit, waved jauntily.

"Hi! Anything wrong?" She asked cheekily. Agent K and whatever-his-letter-is pointed their guns at her. "Can't shoot me. No powers, remember?" Dani said, "So that would violate rule number thirty-three, section eight, chapter twelve on dealing with non-hostile ecto-entities of sentience, making it illegal."

Agent K began laughing. Dani crossed her fingers and kept to what she'd learned from Sam- keep talking and pretend you know what you're doing.

"Why don't you just keep laughing? Because rule number thirty-three, section eight, chapter twelve states clearly- and I quote- that 'all sentient ecto-entities, hostile or non-hostile, when rendered harmless by ecto-ability-nullifying technology and/or confinement may not be injured by use of anti-ecto weaponry under the mutual understanding that any powerless specter cannot cause harm to a living being and thus self-defense is not necessary against them and any harm that comes to them will be considered an act of war'."

Dani smiled happily at their bewildered expressions. To be quite honest, she had no idea where she'd dredged up that knowledge from. . . just that she was thankful Sam had been such a great teacher in the ways of annoying government officials.

"War. It's not a good thing." She clarified helpfully.

"Shut it, convict." Agent K snapped.

"I'm not a convict. I haven't been officially declared guilty." Dani pestered them some more. Agent K's eye twitched.

"Whatever!" He snapped. "We're here to pick you up for your trial. It's in an hour and it'll take a while to get there."

"And then you really will be a convict." The other agent said with menace in his voice. Dani took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

You haven't done anything wrong. She thought. It's important to remember that. Also, this means that they don't know about the party I was throwing in here. They're just here to ship me off.

"Fill out your slip of lease." Agent K said, thrusting an official-looking piece of paper in her face. A second later a pencil followed it, and Dani ducked to avoid being poked in the eye. She picked up the piece of paper and scanned it, seeing that she was supposed to write her name and what she'd been accused of, she quickly scrawled the answers and handed the slip back to Agent K. He scowled, whipped out a red pen, and began correcting it.

"First of all, your name is not 'Dani Fenton/Phantom', it's clone thirteen. You haven't been convicted with robbery, you've been convicted with 'crimes against humanity'."

"Crimes against humanity?" Dani asked incredulously. "I haven't left Amity Park in, like, five months!"

Agent K ignored her and handed back the slip of lease or whatever. Done nothing wrong, done nothing wrong, done nothing wrong. Dani thought over and over. She kept chanting the mantra in her head as she was surrounded by GIW agents. One grabbed each of her arms, and another grabbed her feet and lifted her off the ground. They began to haul her towards the door of her cell.

"Hey!" She snapped. "I can walk, you know!"

They ignored her. Of corse.

Dani tried to remember the turns and corners they took to get to the entrance of the building, but she lost count after twenty-five. The white walls, white ceilings, and white floors all blurred together in her mind. She hoped she never had to see that much white ever again. And unless she was ruled innocent. . .

. . .that was very unlikely.

Daylight flared in Dani's vision, very different from the ugly florescent light strips that lined the hallways and cells. It was warmer, less distant, and. . . more free. Dani was, sadly, unable to see past the stupid guard holding her feet, but she could tell by the light breeze on her face that they were nearing a door.

So it was kind of surprising to her when they went right past it and entered a below-ground parking garage instead. She couldn't see very much of it, but she could hear the clang and then click as a door opened and shut behind them, and could see the texture (but not the color) of the walls change as it shifted from metal to concrete. She could feel the rumble of motors reverberating in her ears, and a few steps later she was roughly dropped into the back of a big white van.

Dani suppressed a chuckle. "Is there candy in here?" She asked snarkilly. The guards looked at each other bewilderedly, and Dani let her laughter bubble to the surface. A moment later she was rolling on the ground with hysterical giggles bubbling out of her mouth.

"Always trust a man in a big white van!" She gasped.

It probably isn't normal to be having mood swings like this, Dani thought, but it just made her laugh harder.

"Is that. . . a girl thing?" One of her guards whispered to the other.

"Maybe it's puberty?" The other one whispered back.

Dani was already having a hard time breathing through her mirth, and the two guards' comments made it that much more difficult. She could hardly hear the clang as they slammed the door shut over her howls, although she could listen quite clearly as they made some comment about girls being scary.

Dani continued her laugh-fest until the van slammed into motion and she was banged against the back doors. The breath was knocked out of her and she lay there, dazed, for a moment before sitting up and wrapping her arms around her stomach. She had to think.

She knew, despite Youngblood and Sid's 'reassurances', she kind of looked like crap. No way was she going to get taken seriously looking like this. But what could she do, really? It wasn't like she had makeup or a pair of scissors to fix her stupid haircut. . .

Dani's hand drifted to her ipod, curled around the remnants of her black glove, and she heard the crinkle of the slip of paper Agent K had thrown at her. Her other hand cupped around the necklace Danny had given her as a plan formed in her mind. A wild, insane, crazy plan, but a plan nonetheless.

"Wish me luck." Dani whispered to the tiny pendant, hoping that somehow Danny could hear her.

Even if she wasn't entirely sure she could trust him.

Pushing that thought out of her head, Dani began to bring her plan into action. She picked up the slip of paper, remembering how Agent K had so gleefully scrawled on it in red. She wondered if he'd be so smug if he knew what she was about to do.

Dani ripped off the piece of the paper where 'thirteen' and 'humanity' ran together creating a big red splotch. She spat on her finger (she wasn't one of those girly-girls who couldn't stand her own saliva) and rubbed it across the paper until the ink bled out and the whole thing became a sopping red mess. Dani waited for it to halfway dry and then pressed it to her mouth, rubbing it across her lips. It wasn't exactly Maybelline, but it would do.

Second, Dani pinched both her cheeks, hard. Her eyes watered at the pain but she knew that in a few seconds her cheeks would flush as if she'd applied a brushstroke of pink blush to them, a trick she'd picked up o her worldwide travels. An old trick, yes, but that didn't make it any less affective.

Next, Dani carefully (carefully!) unwound her headphones. She popped the speaker off of one of them, exposing the bare wires, and switched on the ipod. Just as she'd hoped- sparks! Dani quickly set the remaining bit of the slip of lease on fire, and after a moment of hesitation lifted it towards her head. It took a long time for Dani to do what she intended. She didn't have a mirror, and she felt as if the piece of paper would burn completely before she was done. She also had a hard time not flinching away from the heat at the base of her skull. Every bump in the road made her freeze, hoping against hope that she hadn't messed up too badly. But, eventually, she finished and dropped the paper to the ground, stomping out the fire. Her hand reached up and tugged a small chunk of her hair forwards. She could see the whole thing, but she knew what she'd done. Her hair, previously ragged and and hacked to just below her shoulders, was now burned off to just above them, staining her pearly white hair black at the ends. Even though Dani couldn't see very much of it, she decided it probably looked ok.

Lastly, Dani took some of the ashy remains of the paper, spat in them, and brushed them over her eyelashes. After wiping her fingers dry she patted the dust lightly over her eyelids. As an afterthought, she brushed them over the front of her jumpsuit and traced out the symbol both she and Danny shared. The stark black marks stood out against the bland white background. For some reason that made Dani smile.

Then the van slammed to a halt, pitching Dani forwards against the front of the car. She had arrived.

BVQA: Whoo. . . this story is wrapping up nicely.

Dani: *no longer loopy* Wait, what?

BVQA: It's almost over. Just a few more chapters.

Dani: What? We got stuck in limbo for that? You could have just told me the story would be over soon and I wouldn't have killed you!

BVQA: Heh. . . sorry?

Dani: Oh, you will die now!

BVQA: Aah! Please give me some reviews so I can throw them at her!

Dani: DIE!