5
When he woke, Timmy found himself in bed again. Not the oversized one he had in his room back at the Neogene Manor, but the normal average bed that was kept in his room at the Archives. Shifting, he managed to get himself to a sitting position, one hand lifting to rub his head as he tried to sort out exactly what had happened to him. The events of last night were little more than a vague blur of light and color, and the headache that pounded in his brain did little to help him remember.
"Good morning, Sport. Are you feeling better?" Wanda's voice asked gently and he opened his eyes again, looking up with faint surprise at his fairy godparents fluttering before him. "Caleb brought you in here." she answered his silent question, "And we came when our Timmy Sense went off. I thought you were still in bed; why did you come to New York?" Timmy gave her a confused stare, then gasped in alarm as everything rushed back to him.
"Danny!" he cried, leaping out of bed and racing for the door, his godparents flying after him in a rush.
"Timmy! Wait! You're not supposed to get out of bed until we make sure you're okay first!" Wanda exclaimed, waving her arms in a panic as the brunet dashed for the medical wing, bare feet moving so fast it was almost as if they hardly touched the floor.
He remembered now; trying to get his cousin back to normal, the explosion of light in his head as he forced the memory of Danny Phantom into place, the blast that erupted in front of him at the moment of fusion. What happened after that? Did it work? Was Danny better now... or did he just make things worse? He checked the doors of each room in the wing, searching for the one that held his cousin.
"Nope. Not here. Nuh-uh. Not this one." he panted out and stuck his head in another, almost jerking out in reflex before catching himself and looking back in. "Sam! Tucker! Where is he?" he blurted out frantically. The two older teens blinked at him in surprise.
"Getting breakfast like he said he would." Tucker returned and blinked, "Oh, wait, you're talking about Danny, right?" The brunet hurried in and looked up at the Goth, fearful of the answer but still craving it.
"Sam, is he okay? Is Danny all right? What I did, last night; did it do anything to him?" he begged, "Tell me he's okay!" Sam stared down at him for a moment before finally giving him a tired grin, reaching down to ruffle his hair.
"He's asleep, but he's fine. And back to normal too, thanks to you." she returned and gestured towards the glass wall before her, similar to the one in the Ivory Tower's ICU, "Caleb isn't sure what it was you did, but he was grateful that you were able to pull it off. Though, he also looked a little scared by it." Timmy walked up to the glass as Cosmo and Wanda poofed into the room and hovered behind him, still worried over his health. Peering into the room beyond the wall, the brunet blinked at the familiar menagerie of machines and attendants tending to instruments as his older cousin slept peacefully in bed.
"He's still in Phantom form." Timmy murmured, then blinked and looked up at Sam, "Scared? Why would Caleb be scared?"
"Apparently whatever it is you did wasn't supposed to be possible without magitechnology to help you." Tucker supplied and gazed through the window himself, "He's holding the form with ecto crystals until he completely heals with his ghost powers. Considering the damage he took while he was gone, and I'm guessing he fought pretty rough to try getting out of being kidnapped and all, it's gonna be a while before he's healthy enough to do anything."
"Why not just use magic to heal him?" Timmy asked and lifted his hands, "I'll just cast Cure and we'll be done." Sam reached down and closed her hand over his, shaking her head.
"We can't do that. We're not sure what you did to change Danny back to normal, and Caleb doesn't want to risk hurting him in any way until he knows for sure that he's okay. You rewrote his ectomana signature from memory; throw on anything else that's mana-based and we're not sure what will happen." she told him softly, "So we have to let him recover on his own. It'll be slow, but it'll be safer." The brunet blinked up at her, then sighed and nodded slowly. A knock at the door and the group turned to see the android they spoke of enter and fold his arms over his chest.
"Breakfast is ready. Now that things are calming down a little here, I'd like a report on how things are in Dimmsdale." Caleb remarked dryly and lifted an eyebrow at the visible flinch on the boy's face, "Oh lovely. I get the feeling that I'm going to love this." Timmy rubbed his head sheepishly.
"Ah, not as much as Genis is gonna love it. Heh." he chuckled hesitantly.
Two Hours Later~
"You let him assault the Ivory Tower?" Caleb shrieked in a fury, slamming his hands down onto the table hard enough to crack the stone slab that comprised the desktop. Timmy flinched again, the mana shield blooming into existence around him out of instinct. Several android 'Heroes' in the room fled immediately, a menagerie of colorful capes and costumes blurring as they made their dash for the door. He watched them run and felt extremely relieved that he had chosen to leave out the details on finding out he'd been murdered, not killed in an accident as both Caleb and Team Phantom still believed. The android would probably have thrown an even bigger fit, if that was even possible. "While everyone was inside the building? Do you realize you could have let everyone get killed because you weren't vigilant enough to monitor your enemy's movements?" the redhead barked out angrily, "How could you do something so stupid?"
"He had a nullifier; I couldn't move!" Timmy whimpered, hunching his shoulders as he looked down at his hands.
"Don't yell at him! He did all that he could at the time! At least he had our best interests at heart; the Tower could withstand more damage than it took, long enough for him to gather his strength and strike back against Remy!" Wanda snapped at the android. Caleb scowled at her, then sat back down in a huff, ignoring the three teens before him giving each other sidelong looks.
"Ugh, fine. I'll get Genis to work on moving funds around to repair the Tower. So you have two additional fighters on your team now?" he managed to ask civilly, "That explains the work being done in the lab on new armor. I'll have it sent to you when I get the all clear that they're done." He finally broke into a small grin, looking faintly mischievous. "And you sabotaged the Dark Spires' network connection? Perhaps there's hope for you yet." he added and drummed his fingers against the desk, "We're improving the mana shield generator for your use. Once the final tests have run and we finish the preliminary units, we'll begin attaching the generators to the armor. Also, I plan on activating the magitech threads in the armor. This will allow your friends to carry the armor at all times and change into it in an instant. Hopefully, this will give them additional protection just in case another incident like this arises." Timmy brightened with interest, dropping his shield to better see the android.
"Really? Cool! How?" he asked excitedly and the android tapped at one wrist.
"Each set of armor has a band on the right gauntlet. All your friends have to do is tap the runes on the band and the armor will meld into the mana around them. The band will remain around their wrist so they can tap the runes once more to call the armor." he explained simply, "Easy enough for even you to grasp." He sighed then and looked somewhat reluctant. "Though I would prefer if you waited until both Danny and I are able to aid you, I'm afraid that I must agree with your decision to push for the continued destruction of the Spires. I can only hope that your team, as it stands now, is powerful enough to destroy it without us." Caleb went on and ran a hand through his hair, "I would really like it if you didn't move in, but those things are cancelling mana along with magic, and if they continue at their rate of perfecting the nullification field, it won't be long before the whole world is destroyed."
"Well, never fear! The gang and I are gonna hit the next Spire in a few more days and since we cut the network, it won't be able to blab about our tactics to the other Spires!" Timmy declared with mock confidence, unable to keep a small waver out of his voice. He grinned hugely, praying that the android didn't pick up on it. Perhaps not, he looked kind of distant, like he wasn't paying attention to him anymore. Timmy blinked at him, sighed, then got up. "I'd better get home, then, if I can't do anything else to help Danny." he murmured, "You'll let me know when he wakes up, right?" Caleb snapped back to alertness as Sam and Tucker agreed and wished him luck.
"Hm? Oh, yes, of course." the android added and looked pensive again, "Yes, that's right; you were the one who did this, returning his ectomana to its former state." The brunet gave him a strange look, then left the table, his godparents still looking relatively worried as they followed him to the teleportation room.
Dimmsdale~
"As near as I can tell..." Remy remarked, studying the holographic images of Team Turner intently, "...that mongrel has been doing exceedingly well against me because of this team effort thing." He paced back and forth before them, a frown on his face. Every single last member was up there; he'd been studying them all for quite some time now. Well, almost all of them, as he hadn't thought to add in Chip Skylark. He honestly thought the singer was dead, but lately he was beginning to wonder if anyone in Dimmsdale stayed dead. What next; was Timmy Turner going to crawl out of his little grave and start bashing at his door with undead, accusing eyes any time now?
He quelled that line of thought right away. Best not borrow trouble, even if it is within one's own mind.
"Timothy has a great number of friends on his side." Juandissimo agreed carefully, "Perhaps this is a sign that what we are doing should not go on any longer. Mi amigo, think of the lives we are going to ruin if those Spires remain standing. Why not take his offer and just bring them down?"
"I can't afford to now, Juandissimo. Now hush and let me ponder over this." Remy returned, studying the group of holograms even harder, "Though you are right in pointing out that we are severely outnumbered when it comes to actually facing them on the battlefield. The anti-magic units are of little use in combating them, save for the nullifiers on Timothy, and those are taken out by the non-magical rapscallions." He paced a bit, thinking aloud. "I've tried cloning myself to deal with two of them, that Trixie witch and the Goth girl, but both were defeated by the rest of the group. Primarily by that abhorrent anti-fairy and the Goth's older sister. So what shall I do?"
The boy millionaire puzzled the question over in his mind. Timothy was obviously the greatest threat the team had, what with his magic and immortality and all, but toss in a nullifier and he was history. At least, in theory. The moment a device like that appeared, though, Chester McBadbat would step in and either demolish it or come after Remy himself for the time it took for someone else to get rid of the nullifier. And though Timothy was the primary thorn in his side, the redneck was leader of that bunch of outcasts that mourned constantly over Turner. What he said, went, as far as they were all concerned.
And they had Trixie. She who had all the information he had told her in utmost confidence simply because he had her under control. Well, now that control was gone and she was spilling secrets left and right to that blasted brunet. Worse still, she was choosing to consort with that trailer trash hick! Over him! Sacrilege!
"These three are the most threatening. Take these three out and the rest will fall." Remy finally decided firmly, pointing at the images of Timothy, Chester and Trixie, "In one fell swoop, those blasted Others will crumble to pieces and there will be no further motivation to undermine my plans!"
"And how are you to accomplish this, Remy?" Juandissimo asked dryly, "As long as they wear the symbol of the Heart of Dimmsdale, you cannot wish harm to them in any way, not even a pie in the face, nor can you wish them away from the city." Remy laughed confidently, waving a hand in dismissal of the doubts.
"Three on three, of course! I just have to find the counterparts to the redneck and the little bitch and make my wishes concerning them!" he declared, "And I bet I know just the right people for the jobs!" With that, he spun and marched out of the room with his godfather following, his laughter still lingering in the air.
All it took was a wish and he was standing within the room of a highly disturbed cheerleader. He looked around, unsettled by the many posters and photos of Trixie decorating the place, then set his eyes on Veronica as she sat before her vanity. Her brush was in one hand, a wig of long black hair completely enveloping her own blonde tresses. She even had that damned purple hairband adorning it for good measure. From where he stood, Remy could look into the mirror, saw her eyes looking down at the plush doll of Timmy in her free hand, a secretive smile on her face.
"Mine, mine, mine." she murmured, "When I show you to the world, you will be all mine." The smile grew wider. "After all, I'm going to be Trixie. I'll be Trixie just for you and you will never leave me." she added cheerfully and lifted her gaze to resume brushing her 'hair', pausing in shock as she finally noticed the blonde behind her. She spun in her chair, furious. "How the hell did you get in my room?" she hissed, gripping the brush until her knuckles turned white, "You total pervert!"
"I want to help you." Remy found himself saying quickly, his mind racing to piece together the story he needed to convince her to join him. Her mind was unstable; make a wish to force her to help him and chances were good that she'd completely snap and go out of his control. "You are convinced that Turner still exists..."
"Timmy is alive!" Veronica snapped, blue eyes flashing angrily, "I know he is! I've seen him! I've touched him! He's alive and he's hidden and I'm gonna find him and show him to the world!"
"Fine, fine. Yes." Remy corrected himself hastily, "Of course. You're right. He's alive." Good Lord, this child was dangerously close to the deep end, if not already in it. Touched him? How can one touch what doesn't exist? He clasped his hands together and cleared his throat. "Ah, Veronica, you want to have Timmy all to yourself, correct?"
"Like, duh! I just told you I was gonna find him!" the cheerleader growled. He forced a smile.
"Well, that's what I'm here for! I'm going to help you take Timmy all for yourself!" he agreed brightly, "I'll help you become Trixie and he will come out just for you!" Veronica glared at him suspiciously, then seemed to relax the tiniest bit, her shaking grip on the brush slackening ever so slightly.
"You... you want to help me?" she asked warily, "Help me get Timmy? And be Trixie?" Remy nodded.
"All your wishes and dreams. I'll make them come true." he murmured and jumped slightly as her defenses went back up, the brush aimed at him like a weapon.
"Shut up! Only Timmy Turner can make my dreams and wishes come true! He's the Heart of Dimmsdale! That's, like, his power!" she growled. Remy held his hands up as a show of peace.
"Yes, yes! Of course! My mistake!" he exclaimed. This was a lot more work than he thought it would be. "I will help you find Timmy, if you can help me with a little something." Veronica narrowed her eyes at him, lower lip jutting out in a pout.
"You were always calling me crazy. You totally freak out the A-List and you act like such a total jerk to us! Us! The rich and popular kids! We're the ones on top and you treat us like dirt!" she hissed, "So why should I help you?" Remy glanced around, then pointed at the first large poster of Trixie Tang he spotted.
"Her. You want to be Trixie, but you can't as long as she is around." he remarked smoothly, "That is why I want your help. She has been helping a rival of mine, and I want her gone. I want you to help me make her 'gone'. Understand?" Veronica blinked at the poster, then looked at him blankly.
"Trixie is helping someone?" she echoed, "Like, what for?"
"They're doing bad things to my buildings, she and Timothy." Remy went on, faking a hurt tone, "Such awful things. Surely she doesn't deserve Turner's love if she is destroying town property? Every time she does it, Timmy gets very sad." The girl's eyes flashed again, fury filling their bright blue color.
"Oh, she is sooo gonna pay for that! Nobody hurts my precious Timmy Turner and gets away with it! Just for that, she doesn't even deserve to be part of the A-List anymore! Queen of the Populars, my ass!" she raged, "Where is she? I'm totally ripping her hair out chunk by chunk!" Remy smiled, rubbing his hands together almost gleefully.
"You will have your chance, dear Veronica, trust me!" he purred, "All you have to do is know that when the time is right, I will summon you to face off against Trixie." He spread his hands again, motioning as if to offer her a gift. "If you are able to take Trixie out of the game, then her place will be open for you. You will be the new Trixie and Timmy Turner's heart will be yours forever." The cheerleader smiled hugely, giggling as she clutched brush and doll tightly in her fists.
"Oh, yeah! That's what I want! He'll be mine! All mine!" she laughed and turned to face the poster, "You hear that? Mine! He'll be mine, not yours! You don't deserve him! You never deserved him! Your fault he left us, but he's back and he's mine!"
Remy took her maniacal laughter as a cue to leave.
The obvious choice to counter Trixie was Veronica, but countering Chester was going to take someone with greater power and strength. And in Dimmsdale, there was only one teen whose physical prowess could more than match the redneck street-brawler. Remy's next wish deposited him in the basement of the still self-exiled Francis. Juandissimo blinked in surprise at the jungle gym from where he stood by his godchild in peacock guise, then looked up in alarm when Remy made a sudden horrified gasp.
"What manner of deviltry is this?" the blonde whispered half in revulsion and half in fear. He took a step back as a figure moved from a work table across from him.
"Hmm. Another one. I thought I got enough sleep this time." Francis' voice remarked flatly as he emerged from the shadows into the light by the slowly rotating jungle gym, "And it's the rich one this time." He took in the other boy's stare and then looked up at the jungle gym. "I'm still trying to figure it out. Not quite there yet, but I blame Dimmsdale's collective dumbness. It's stuck on so long that it takes me forever to work through a single idea." he added. Remy opened and closed his mouth a few times, face pallid, then managed to regain some composure.
"I... I see. Francis, old chap, I have a proposition for you." he began and cleared his throat, shifting slightly in discomfort as he made a concentrated effort to not look at the jungle gym. "There has been a string of attacks on my towers by a terroristic little band of hooligans and I'm offering you a wondrous deal in exchange for your assistance in eliminating a certain little peasant." he went on. Francis gave him a suspicious glare and the blonde fidgeted nervously. Juandissimo fluffed his feathers in rising anxiety, ready to defend his godchild if any harm came to him.
"First time in ages anyone's asked me to pull a job for them." the gray-skinned teen finally muttered, "Can't say I like where it's going."
"If you get rid of Chester McBadbat, I'll use my power to free you from this house imprisonment. You'll be absolved of any guilt associated with Turner's death." the blonde finished quickly, "Think of it! You'll be able to leave this dustbin of a shack and move out of the city!" The other teen drew himself up, eyes narrowing further as Juandissimo edged closer to Remy.
"I don't believe he is buying it, amigo." he whispered and gulped as Francis shot him a look.
"That peacock just talked." he muttered, "I really should be getting more sleep." He relaxed then and went back to studying the jungle gym. "And no. I'm not beating up any more kids. Look where hurting Timmy got us. For him, I won't lift a hand against anyone." Remy scowled and stepped forward.
"Listen, you behemoth! I'm offering you the opportunity of a lifetime to get out of this city with your life intact! All you have to do is make sure McBadbat is no longer able to lead the Others in any attacks on my Spires!" he snapped. Francis only glanced at him in boredom.
"You're the most annoying hallucination I've ever had." he commented, "But I guess that's better than the silence. Too much of that and I can't focus on my work quite as well." The boy millionaire blinked in shock. Hallucinations? Francis was having hallucinations? Dear Lord, the man had gone batty in only four years!
"Juandissimo! Change back!" he called over his shoulder and the peacock fluffed itself up again.
"Remy? What do you mean?" the disguised fairy hissed as low as he could, "I cannot expose myself to another human!"
"I wish you would reveal yourself!" Remy snapped and Juandissimo growled under his breath as he granted it, poofing out of that form and back to normal.
"Although it is nice to be back in my own sexy body, that is still the first time I've heard you make a senseless wish." the Latino grumbled and fluttered by him, "What was the point of this?" Francis continued ignoring them as Remy waved the fairy lower to converse in private.
"He's suffering from delusions, so he won't even register the fact that you are an actual fairy. I just need your help getting him convinced to help me! I won't risk a wish unless it is absolutely necessary." he whispered fiercely, "He's not as loopy as Veronica is now, I think, so it should be relatively safe to coerce him magically to follow my orders." He turned back to Francis as the gray-skinned teen finally decided to return to paying them some attention, eyebrow lifted at the sight of the fairy godfather.
"Yet another first. I must be having a creative spurt today." he muttered to himself, "So when do you two run out of here? Am I going to have to explain my findings again?"
"Look, all you have to know is that it is imperative you stop Chester McBadbat from interfering with my plans." Remy told the older teen, "I am attempting to bring Dimmsdale under my control so that it can be revived, and that metal-mouth brat is thwarting my every attempt!"
"I remember saying no the first time. I don't think I've changed my mind since then."
"You get to beat people up again! Free of charge!"
"Now I'm getting déjà vu. Didn't I also say I wasn't hurting people anymore?"
Juandissimo watched his godchild grow more frustrated and immediately struck a pose, snapping a shirt free with the motion.
"Remy, mi amigo, it is obvious that nothing you say to him will convince him to help you. Let us leave this most unsexy of places and forget the matter completely!" he declared as Francis watched the torn fabric fall to the floor.
"That looks like it was a designer shirt. What an expensive hallucination." he mused aloud. Remy brought his hand down over his face in exasperation. This was going nowhere very slowly and he had to wrap this up before he snapped.
"If you will not do as I say when I say it, then I shall simply force you to obey!" he hissed, "Juandissimo! I wish Francis would get rid of Chester McBadbat when I command it the next time Neogene attacks a Spire!" The Latino fairy flinched but waved his wand, spreading the magic over the older teen. He blinked at the cloud of dust, then lifted an eyebrow.
"And now I get special effects. Maybe I ate something that didn't agree with me?" Francis murmured. Remy huffed indignantly and brushed imaginary dust from his jacket.
"That should do it. Now, I wish we were home. I've had enough of this tomfoolery and need to wash myself of this filthy place." he finished bitingly and both he and the fairy vanished in a blast of purple smoke. Francis narrowed his eyes at the exit.
"That's not how my hallucinations normally end. Guess old Crock-Pot was onto something long ago." he muttered and turned back to studying the jungle gym, "Almost. I almost figured it out. How did it turn without anyone seeing it?"
Dimmsdale Rooftops~
Timmy looked down at the cell phone in his hand as Cosmo and Wanda floated by him. Standing on the roof of one of the higher buildings in the city, the brunet had spent much of the morning just calling each of his friends to let them know how things fared in New York. They all sounded excited and cheered by that, though Vicky still wasn't sure exactly who he was talking about and Chip only asked, rather lamely, who the heck Danny Phantom was and if he had a record deal he could share later. Timmy managed a small grin at the phone and slid it back into his pocket. Sighing in relief, he let the wind continue passing over him, breathing in the scent of mana and magic in the air. Fifty percent freed; Dimmsdale was well on its way to recovering its lost magic and then all the godchildren there would be safe. All that would be left is the attempt to get them to move on.
That car still hadn't moved.
Timmy sighed harshly and sat down, swinging his legs over the edge of the building as he scowled down at the vehicle. It had pulled up there next to the bank some time ago and a couple of men had strolled into the building like they owned the place. He'd seen this before at times in New York, although he didn't really learn much about the situations because the guy in the spider suit was constantly yelling at him to go home. All he knew was that this was usually what happened just before the alarms went off in the bank and all heck broke loose.
Well, not in Dimmsdale. Not today. Not while he was still in this sour mood over the possibility that there might still be some darkness in him.
"Wanda, I wish the tires on that car down there were all flat." Timmy remarked dryly, watching the group below him with veiled irritation as his godmother waved her wand and granted his wish. Right on time, the bank alarms began screaming bloody murder and the two men dashed out of the building with satchels of money in their clutches. They darted into the car and tried to make their escape, but the vehicle didn't get very far on four flat tires. Still, the attempt to continue escaping got on Timmy's nerves.
"Cosmo, I wish their engine fell out." he added and with a burst of green smoke the car's engine heaved itself out of the hood and abandoned the car in disgust. The vehicle died and it wasn't long before the men tried to jump out of the vehicle themselves. "Oh, great. Now they decide to think about things?" Timmy sighed in exasperation and took the Hanuman's Rod from its strap on his pack. Spinning it above himself once, he pointed it down at the car and focused. "Ofer Hoetu!" The car doors began to melt and sealed themselves shut, trapping the bank robbers within the vehicle for the police to collect once they arrived.
"One more point for the good guys!" Cosmo remarked brightly, poofing up a scoreboard as the numbers flipped over to change the tally, "What do we do next, Timmy? Y'know, since you don't want to go back to the mansion or the Ivory Tower and you don't seem to want to be around your human friends for the time being and all?" Timmy frowned slightly and bowed his head in thought. His mind flitted through everything he had seen and learned and experienced in the past few weeks before finally settling on something he had mentioned before.
"The Crocker Cave." he murmured and looked up at the two fairies, "I want to investigate the cave. I wish we were at Dimmsdale Elementary!" The couple lifted their wands and granted it, poofing the three of them from the top of the building overlooking the bank to the lawn of the elementary school. Almost immediately, Timmy jumped with a cry of pain and darted aside to another part of the lawn. "Hey! Not so close to that spot!" he exclaimed in a startled voice, "Whatever is making all that negative energy there still hurts!" He rubbed his leg as Cosmo and Wanda looked over at the patch of grass in confusion, then turned back to watch him.
"Sorry, Sweetie. We didn't mean to put you so close to it." Wanda murmured, "The school is empty today, right?" The brunet nodded, testing his weight on his left leg before deciding it wasn't that badly stung. He lifted his arm with the Adventurer's Map and called up the scanner for anti-magic traps. None so far; had Crocker finally given up trying to reclaim the elementary school? He could only hope.
Making his way to the school doors, Timmy murmured a wish for them to be unlocked, then slipped through once they swung open for him. It was easy to find Crocker's room again, now that he could remember where it was without sitting through several minutes of trauma. What wasn't easy was deciding whether or not to actually go through with entering the cave. He flipped open the top of the Crocker bust on the desk and pressed the button hidden within it, watching grimly as the tile floor just before the desk slid aside to reveal the entrance to his former teacher's lair.
"I don't know about this, Sport." Wanda muttered, fluttering over to peer into the opened lair, "Crocker's lair might have a lot of traps still active! What if going in triggers something that could hurt us?" Timmy shook his head at that.
"I've already scanned the area, and there aren't any anti-magic traps anywhere." he replied and looked into the hole himself, "I just hope that there's a soft landing down there." He sighed. "'Cause if there isn't, I'm just gonna end up breaking a lot of bones. Oh well; not like it's gonna kill me now." he added under his breath and leaped into the cave. Cosmo and Wanda shot after him, immediately using their magic to catch him in mid-fall and float him gently to the floor of the lair. Timmy smiled up at them gratefully. "Thanks, guys! Have I mentioned how much I love having you with me?" he remarked with a laugh.
"You say it every time you cook us dinner." Wanda pointed out with a grin.
"And any time you get us cookies and chocolate!" Cosmo exclaimed, "Speaking of cookies, we should go get some when we're done!" Timmy touched down at last and looked around himself at the lair. The place was wall to wall computers, gadgetry, fairy 'evidence' and boxed plans for capturing fairies, namely Cosmo and Wanda. Not much had changed since the last time he'd been there. Though the lights had been shut off, the lair was illuminated by the soft glow of the swirling pink energy emitted by the Fairy Portal. The brunet waved a hand before himself, generating a Light orb to help light the room and setting it to hover over his head as he walked up to the portal.
"It's still working. I would have thought the machinery for it would have run out of power or something." Timmy mused aloud, examining it carefully and brushing away cobwebs, "Maybe it's using fairy magic as a power source. What do you guys think?" Wanda and Cosmo flew closer to it and studied the machine themselves.
"If it is tapping into Fairy World's magic as a fuel supply, we can use it to recharge our wands from here on Earth." Wanda finally murmured and set her wand near the open portal, watching swirls of magic leech towards the golden star. She pulled it away and shook it. "Yup. Definitely running on magic." she confirmed as the star shone brighter. The brunet tilted his head, then leaned a little closer to the portal himself, closing his eyes as he inhaled the air surrounding it.
"The scent of fairy magic is definitely strong here. I'm surprised it didn't fill up the whole place and set off an alarm or something. Oh well, we'll just take the blueprints to it and build our own Fairy Portal back at the Ivory Tower." Timmy agreed at last, pulling back with a nod of his head, "When Danny gets better, I'll ask him if he can help us build it. He's got tons of experience with portals and junk." He headed for the assorted computers next and tapped at the keyboards. The huge monitor snapped to life, the screen lighting up with activity as Timmy jumped back in surprise. "It wasn't turned off? It was on standby this whole time?" he exclaimed in confusion and blinked at the open window on the monitor.
It was a blueprint for a giant butterfly net, yet another of Crocker's crazy schemes for capturing Cosmo and Wanda. The design was outrageous; the net was set up on a giant spring, meant to snap over the fairies like a massive bear trap. Timmy studied the blueprint with some interest. It was, after all, the last scheme Crocker ever came up with. The date in the corner of the window had it time-stamped as being just a few days before he died.
But something was strange. Timmy frowned slightly as some annoying feeling tugged at his mind, some sense of 'Look closer at it, you idiot!' nagging at him silently. He shook his head, then looked up at the blueprint again, searching it for some answer. Beside the fact that it had a giant net, there didn't seem to be anything wrong with it. According to the drawing, it was supposed to be a spring-loaded trap, cleverly buried under the earth and positioned at the school so that it could be triggered...
His breath caught, eyes going wide in sudden, horrid realization. 'No, not again...' He dimly heard Wanda's startled cry of his name as he dropped to his knees, then curled up on the floor, heart pounding in him in a slow rhythm, almost as though it was about to stop again. That was what Crocker had been planning; another trap to capture Cosmo and Wanda by using him as bait. Only, it failed horribly. The fairies hadn't been with him, so when the trap was triggered, his life was lost. Was that all he was to the mad teacher? Just a means to an end? A price to be paid for obtaining their power?
"Timmy! Timmy, snap out of it! Honey, what's wrong?" Wanda cried in growing panic as Cosmo stared up at the blueprint.
"It's not the same." he murmured, slowly descending to the floor beside the shuddering brunet, "Same place, but not the same trap. This isn't what killed Timmy." The fairy godfather looked blankly at his wife, catching her by surprise. "Not the same." He shook his head suddenly and gripped it in both hands, an expression of pain crossing his face.
"Cosmo! Timmy, listen to me! You have to shake this off!" Wanda urged frantically, "You can't keep losing yourself to the past! If you let this happen over and over, you won't be able to move on! How can you expect the people of Dimmsdale to let go of you if you can't do it yourself?" Timmy lifted his face to blink at her, a distant look in his eyes. She cupped his face in her small hands, forcing him to focus on her. "Let go, Timmy. You can't hope to continue living if you keep hanging onto your death. That life is over." the fairy urged in a low, calming tone, "Get it through your head; it's over. Let go, Timmy, let it go. Please." The brunet blinked again, whimpered and curled up tighter, a sob escaping him.
"I didn't want it to be true. I just want to wake up and have this all just be a bad dream." he mumbled shakily. After a few moments, he stretched out and pushed himself up, rubbing away tears hastily. "Sorry... but I can't let go. Not yet. There's still a chance... somewhere... maybe... There has to be a way to take it all back." Wanda looked up at him and sighed sadly, then fluttered towards her husband to tend to him. Cosmo rubbed his head with a wince, managing a smile for her sake. It, too, seemed rather timid and false, which didn't sit well with Wanda but since he wasn't volunteering any other information it was all she had to know how he was doing.
Timmy finally stood and shook himself off, taking a deep breath for mental cleansing before glaring up at the monitor. All right, so this was the last plan Crocker ever created for trapping Cosmo and Wanda; a giant net that was going to be buried under the jungle gym and snap into action once he fell and the fairies appeared to save him. He frowned thoughtfully. That was strange. The plan for using the butterfly net required the couple to save him; it was useless if they didn't show up, which was what happened. And the design for the net mechanism didn't look at all like the device that Tootie unearthed the previous day. So if the thing in the ground wasn't buried by Crocker to be used in getting rid of him, whose was it?
"Crocker didn't set this up." Timmy murmured softly, "He never planned to kill me; somebody set things up to make him think he killed me." His eyes widened again. "That's why he was so miserable at my funeral! He didn't want me dead; he thought my death was all his fault!" he exclaimed, "He's just a victim too! Someone else planned my murder!" The two fairies looked up at him in shock as he jumped at the console, tapping furiously at the keys again. "This thing is connected to the Internet, right? Cosmo, Wanda! Call everyone together at the Ivory Tower! I'm going to send everything I can to the lab's computers and to the Archive!" Timmy ordered sharply, "Wherever Crocker is, he's watching the Spires and watching us! I've got to get a message to him about this! If I can let him know that he was set up, maybe we can convince him to shut down the rest of the Dark Spires on his own!"
"Then you won't have to destroy them and the secret will be safe!" Wanda cried joyfully, "Timmy! That's a great idea! Oh, Sweetie, I'm so proud of you!" The two fairies poofed themselves away in bursts of pink and green as Timmy grabbed for the phone in his pocket and dialed the number to the Archives. No time to waste; he was going to push for the armors to be done immediately. The next Spire was going down that very night!