Alex quickly finished his light meal, turning his attention to the front door. He didn't expect to find anyone this way, but he knew that it would be foolish to not watch out. Not thirty seconds after putting his spork down and staring, the front doors, admitting a rather frazzled looking woman. She rubbed her eyes, approaching the counter to order a cup of liquid sunshine. Alex stared at her with wide eyes, watching the way she carefully counted out her money and traded it for the coffee before walking over to a lonely booth. Alex tore his eyes away, looking instead back to his empty plate.
A few tables over, the woman pulled her cell phone out, typing out a quick message before sending it out to a single person. Her head snapped up when the loud chirp of another phone met her ears. Across the way, a boy, dripping with rain water and mud, pulled out his own phone, writing out his own message.
"Alex, where are you? Is everything alright?"
"I'm fine."
Jack jumped when her phone beeped once, informing her of the new text. Frowning, she glanced back up, over to the boy. "Alex," she called, getting up to go to the other table. Alex waved awkwardly, making sure that his broken hand was out of site, scooting over after Tucker did to make room for the woman. Jack quickly sat down, but not before flicking the mud off the seat. She nodded towards the three other teens before rounding onto her charge.
"Do you know how worried I've been? The Fenton's and I thought something terrible had happened! Where is Danny? He came back with you, right? Don't think the two of you are getting out of this either," she said to Sam and Tucker. There was no doubt in the woman's mind that the parents of these two would be just as worried as she and the Fenton's had been. The Goth and techno geek look shocked.
"Jack, I'm sorry, but I've been busy. Bank stuff and everything," Alex said, pointing to Sam and Tucker as he continued. "They've been helping."
Jack's eyes widened and she whispered quickly into his ear.
"No, he doesn't know," Alex said, not bothering with whispering. "Though, you're spot on with that, he wouldn't like it if he were to find out." Alex smirked, quickly shaking it off. "Jack, you can't tell anyone that you saw us."
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Jack sighed, rubbing her forehead wearily. "What's going on, Alex?" she asked. Something came into her line of vision, and she barely held back her scream of surprise. It escaped through her lips as an odd squeak.
Danny chose at that moment to become visible once more. He had hidden himself when Jack had been walking over, not yet sure if she could be trusted. Now he was sure, and he went as far as to even look up at her, rather than down at his lap like he had been doing. His glowing green eyes unnerved the woman, but she easily hid it, maternal instincts on overtime as they saw the state of the famous ghost boy. He was a ghost, the much was clear, but he was still just a kid, shivering slightly from being out in the rain. Oddly, he was the only one who looked cold, and not even the girl, who wasn't wearing any sleeves, appeared chilled. Jack had only gotten a coffee because the Fenton's, in their worry and lack of brewing experience, had somehow managed to turn the coffee green with ghost gunk. She was going to finish her own drink before buying two more to bring back to them. Changing her mind, she slid the drink across the table to Danny. He instantly asked if she had poisoned it, taking a grateful swig before she could actually answer him.
"Alex, why didn't you bother to even tell the Fenton's that you were going to skip the ghost camp? They were looking forward to showing you all sorts of paranormal stuff."
"I was sort of tied up with other things, Jack. If you tell them it was because of a ghost they'll probably understand. It was!" he added the last part quickly. The three other teens nodded, backing him up.
"He was on a paranormal mission! Danny stage whispered. "You know? It still has to do with ghosts, but it's his mission. Spooky…"
Jack nodded slowly, glancing down sideways to Alex. He quickly whispered to her that Phantom was a little under the weather, being extremely stressed out and all. "I should hope so," the woman whispered back. Danny ignored them, turning focusing solely on his new drink from which he had removed the lid. He couldn't decide if the cup was half empty or half full. "The Fenton's showed me some rare videos of some ghost fights. Phantom was in a lot of them, and he seemed sane, and he was generally always in control."
Meanwhile, Danny had gained Sam's attention. He waved the cup softly, swirling the contents inside with spilling them out.
"I think it's half empty, Sam, seriously." He explained. Sam shrugged, peering into the cup.
"Why do you think that?' She expected him to say the normal response: life was a bummer, a crazy guy wanted to kill him, Dash would be looking for him to throw him in another dumpster. Everyday stuff.
"Well, I've been drinking it, so it's closer to being empty, right?"
"Uh, yeah. That's why you think that it's empty?"
"Pretty much."
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"What else did the Fenton's show you? I'm Tucker, by the way." The techno geek said, leaning past Alex to smile at his guardian. Jack gasped, remembering something. She put her purse on the table, something she only recently begun to carry, and pulled out a silver boomerang. A light in the middle began to flash, telling everyone that it was ready for work.
"They had several of these. Their prototype had gone missing, but lucky for them, they had the proper notes to make more. This is called a boo-merang, and it can find any ghost."
"And they let you have it? Can I see?" Tucker gushed. Jack nodded, pushing the tracking device over.
"They only let me have this one. The other guests were too young. I don't want anything to do with ghosts though, no offence Phantom, so you can keep it Tucker."
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Jack looked down at her wrist watch. "I told the Fenton's that I'd be back soon, and it's been almost twenty minutes!" She quickly got out of the booth, turning to face the teens.
"Alex, at least tell me that you know where Danny is. I want to have some good news for his parents."
"I can't tell you."
"Is he hurt?"
"No."
"What about you?"
"Fine."
Jack pursed her lips, quickly getting into her purse once more to pull out forty dollars. "I know, bank stuff, but please, try to stay out of trouble this time. Go buy some hot chocolate for you and your friends or something. I'll be waiting at Fenton Works."
Alex nodded, accepting the money and slipping it into his pocket. Jack smiled, ruffling his hair a bit before walking away to buy some coffee for the Fenton's. With that done, she gave a final wave to the four teenagers before departing the restaurant.
"Good luck, guys!"
"Man, Yassen's sister is awesome." Tucker said, grinning and earning a few laughs in return. "Is she always so easy going with this kind of stuff, Alex? Bank stuff?"
Alex shrugged. "Not exactly, if she had her way I would have never even started working for the bank. We both know, to certain degrees that I can't pull out of this now."
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Jack made her way quickly back to Fenton Works, letting herself in and walking to the kitchen. The Fenton's were as they had been when she left: Maddie was trying to clean up the mess that was once the coffee maker, Jack was down in the lab, quietly working away at something. Their daughter was upstairs in her room, already aware of what had happened. She was last seen carrying something in her arms. Maddie thought it was a guitar of some sort, and thought that her daughter was falling back into her brief fandom over that strange singer, Ember.
"That was just a phase, Jazz is a smart girl." The mother said to herself, shaking off any doubt that had begun to creep into her mind. She didn't have time to worry over that now. With a sigh, she removed the last of the broken and contaminated glass from the clean kitchen surfaces and floor, dumping them in the trash. When the front door opened, she turned quickly, running out of the room. She ran into Jack, who was halfway across the room. She smiled weakly, trying to cheer up the parents.
"I brought coffee back for you and your husband. Why don't you sit down for a bit?" The woman said softly, handing a cup over. Maddie thanked her, sinking into the nearest couch to try and collect her thoughts once more. Jack continued on past her, walking down to the lab. "Jack, I brought coffee." She called, entering the lab. Her eyebrows rose in surprise at what she saw. Jack Fenton was pouring over the motorcycle that had been discovered earlier, and had gutted out half of the machine. Parts were strewn out in a pattern of organized chaos across the floor. He didn't seem to have heard her. "Jack?"
"Eh? Oh, thanks." The man straightened up and wove his way around the piles of metal to accept the drink. He took a quick sip, and then gestured over to the bike. "You know, Jazz had been dating this punk a while back. He was a real creep, and Danny managed to scare him off…" The man stopped, his proud expression falling as he remembered that his son was currently missing. He took a deep breath, staring down at his cup. "Anyway, this is the punk's bike."
Jack nodded, looking past the man to see the bike again. "Have you found any clues?"
"No. Just traces of ectoplasm. I send them through a scanner about fifteen minutes ago; the results should return in a few minutes."
"Right. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Could you check on Jazz for me? I know I should, but I think I'm really close to finding out what's going on here."
"Sure thing, Jack," Jack smiled, patting the man on his shoulder before going back upstairs. She nodded once to Maddie, making sure that she was alright, before going the rest of the way to the girl's room. She knocked a few times, softly calling for Jazz.
The girl rushed to the other side of the door, quickly opening it. Silently, she stared up at Jack, waiting to know why she had been interrupted. Jack pulled her hand back, noting the red in Jazz's eyes, as if she had been crying.
"You're dad wanted to make sure that you're alright."
"I'm fine, I've just been busy." She gestured behind her, to her computer. She had been reading an online article. The headline was difficult to make out, but Jack was sure it had something to do with Phantom. Her eyes traveled to the bed, where the guitar lay. Jazz noticed this, and stepped aside, letting the woman in. "I found that downstairs, and brought it up here so my parents wouldn't take it apart." Jazz floated away, drifting back to her computer to close the window she had been reading. Before she could, Jack walked over, reading the headline just before it was removed from the screen.
"That's the paper I get back home. Why are you reading it?" Jazz wouldn't answer, keeping her eyes trained on her keyboard. Jack smiled softly, shaking her head. "It doesn't matter, I suppose. Are you into ghost hunting?"
"No!" Jazz said, bristling. "I'm not like my parents. I just wanted to keep an eye on Phantom. I have my own reasons…" she trailed off lamely, blushing. Jack shrugged, backing up to sit on the edge of the bed.
"That's cool; it makes no difference to me. What was the article about though?"
"It wasn't much, only a really small part of it. To read the whole thing, I'd have to pay for it. Here, I'll get the article again," Jazz said, turning back to her computer. Jack got up to get closer to the screen.
PHANTOM: HAUNTED OR HUNTED?
Danny Phantom. A name we've all come to know due to its mysterious aura. Who is the Phantom? Why is he here? This man wants to know. I recently had the honour of meeting the ghostly teen, by a stroke of sheer luck. He has been traveling with three others, all of them living teenagers by the names of Sally, Tucker, both Americans, and Alex, a Russian.
Jack snorted, already finding the article to be rather poor.
Phantom and friends apparently, are on the run, quite possibly from his killer. No word yet on who the killer is, or what he wants with the famous ghost boy…
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"There were a few other things about Phantom on other sites." Jazz said, exiting the window. "They weren't articles, but they still struck me as odd…" she trailed off, getting back on the internet. She pulled up a few low quality photos of Phantom and friends in a small office, talking to some man, possibly the one who wrote the article. The photos were taken at two different angles, from two cameras. Jazz clicked the third picture, enlarging it. You could just see the edge of the man's shoulder, because the focus was on Phantom, who had been I the middle of talking. The white haired teen was standing behind a plush chair, which held a raven haired boy. Next to them, a girl with equally dark hair was drinking from a cup, which hid her face.
"Phantom's in a different outfit, but it's definitely him. You can tell by his eyes." Jack said, pointing. Jazz made a noise of agreement.
"I think the other boy is Alex, and the girl is Sa- Sally." The girl caught herself at the last moment. "Tucker must be somewhere else, out of the room."
Indeed, a door had been caught in the shot. It was wide open, as though someone had just run out of it without closing it behind them properly.
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A few more minutes of chatting went by, and Jack finally bade the girl farewell, leaving the pink room to retreat to her guest room in the Ops Center. Jazz waved, smiling weakly until the door clicked shut. Instantly, her face fell. Her sad eyes turned back to the computer, where the picture of Danny and his friends had remained for the past five minutes or so.
"Danny, what's going on?" she whispered, feeling her eyes tear up. "Who's after you?"
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Jack collapsed on her bed, kicking her shoes off. Wearily, she stared up at the ceiling, her mind elsewhere.
Alex was there in that photo with Sally and Phantom. For some odd reason or another, he was dressed exactly like Danny Fenton. Could there be some mistake; could the boy really be Danny?
No, her mind said firmly. You've been living with Alex for years. You know his face.
But… Russian? Where did that come from? As far as her knowledge went, the only Russian she knew- or heard of, really- was six feet under. And where was Danny? The young Fenton wasn't even mentioned, it was as though he was never even there.
Alex said that he was with them though. She'd have to take his word on that.
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When the teens stepped back out into the real world, Danny armed with another cup of coffee to go with the first; they noted how the rainfall had increased. The halfa practically inhaled the rest of his first cup so that he'd have a free hand. A trash can was right next to him, and he tossed the cup away before continuing on. Alex had begun talking during the pale boy's two second absence, but Danny quickly caught on.
"If it's anything, we could sneak back to Fenton Works to grab some gear."
"Like a couple of jackets," Sam grumbled, flicking her wet hair from her eyes.
"Or that book. We can't let that get in the wrong hands." Tucker said. Alex winced.
"You're right. We really need to get that back."
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A few miles away, a single man sat in a plush chair, sitting out the rain in a Starbuck's. He was really content, relaxing in the chair with some hot tea and a rather interesting book. Some of the workers thought he had picked up the book from their small selection of books on the nearby shelf, but they were wrong to think that. If they were paying any attention, they would have noticed that he had brought the book in with him.
Vlad smirked, taking a sip of his drink before turning yet another page of The Black Peacock.
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AN: Cliffhanger! Leave a review, and I'll get the next chapter up quickly.
29 hits and only 2 reviews from the last chaper? :(