Merry Christmas, everyone! And enjoy this chapter :)

"Danny, please, talk to us, what happened?" Sam begged, her eyes full of worry and concern.

"Dude, we have never seen you this beat up over Skulker," Tucker would have laughed at the thought of Skulker getting Danny if it hadn't been so true.

"That's 'cause it wasn't Skulker," Danny finally let out.

Both Sam and Tucker's faces revealed their perplexed minds. Sam was sure she hadn't seen any other ghost except for Skulker out there, and Tucker was positive that Sam didn't mention another name.

"So then who was it?" Sam questioned.

Danny's hesitation gave away the answer.

"Someone new?" Tucker gasped.

"…sort of…" Danny answered, wishing he were strong enough to run away from this conversation.

"What do you mean 'sort of'?" Sam narrowed her eyebrows, getting slightly irritated at his evasive attitude.

Danny sighed, "Can we just have this conversation later? Please? I'm just… I'm so tired, and –"

"No," Tucker and Sam both stated at the same time.

He sighed again, realizing he was going to have to give in. He knew that this conversation was inevitable, but he wouldn't be Danny Fenton if he didn't try to avoid or prolong what he knew had to happen eventually.

"Alright, well we'll have to flash back to about a week ago. I think it was the night of your sleepover, Sam."

To continue his story, Danny sat up a little, and a gasp of pain escaped his lips, but he decided to pretend he hadn't just made that pained sound, and his two friends played along, scared he wouldn't finish if he was interrupted.

"Anyways, after I saw Technus, and went out, I was just about to transform into Danny Fenton when this crazy girl came up to me. She was dressed in these weird cargo pants and black turtle neck.

"She was evasive and quick – skilled even – but not supernatural. Definitely not a ghost or any other thing with powers. I don't even think she knew what ghosts were capable of. I went intangible, and she couldn't figure out how to tell where I was or even if I was still there. It was crazy.

"I defeated her easy, but once I realized she was human, I just let her go. What else was I supposed to do? I couldn't kill her?" he asked rhetorically, and, thankfully, neither of his friends answered.

"Then we flash forward to last night. It was about 2 am when my ghost sense woke me up, and I found none other than Vlad hovering over my head while I was sleeping. I don't even know why he started a fight, still don't actually,"

"Other than the fact that he hates you," Tucker pointed out.

"Yeah, but we never pick fights for the heck of it. There's always a reason. Sometimes it's for power or weapons, Danni maybe, and most frequently my mom, but he just started throwing blow after blow. He brought his clones on for no reason, and I thought he was gonna kill me, but when I finally gave up and laid on the cement, he just flew away. It was like his goal was to hurt me."

"Why do you sound so surprised?" Sam questioned him.

"It's like I've said: he's never been so ruthless before. I almost didn't even know how to act with this new attitude, but it was frightening how evil he really is…

"Back to the point of the story, which wasn't exactly Vlad, even though he played an important part. You were right to question how Skulker got me bad because it's really funny that he thinks he can," Danny chuckled, and Tucker joined in, happy that it wasn't just him who thought the idea was funny. Sam on the other hand wasn't laughing, and did not understand at all why this was so funny.

"Ow," Danny clasped his stomach when the pain of laughing was too much to bear. He regretted the noise he made because both of his friends stared at him with heavy looks of concern. He hated when they cared so much; they should know as a teen ghost hunter that he was bound to get hurt a lot, but they didn't, and he couldn't bring himself to say just how bad it was.

"Er... So after I sucked up Skulker inside the thermos – which by the way we need to go find because I sorta lost it – I was gonna fly back and continue the school day, except this crazy girl came out of nowhere and stood right in front of me.

"I was confused at first, thinking about who this was or what she was rather, but I soon noticed that she seemed ready to fight. This really freaked me out because I surely wasn't. Not in my condition anyway. Regardless, what else was I supposed to do? I couldn't let her beat the crap out of me, so I put my hands up, too. Then, all of a sudden, she shot ectoplasm at me. I didn't see her pull out a gun or anything, she just sorta aimed her fist at me.

"Luckily, I dodged it, but then she pushed me flat on my back, knocking the wind out of me. I can't lie, that took a while to recuperate from, so I went intangible while I tried to catch my breath. I sent an extoblast her way — the only thing that really got her, only when I went to where she sat to throw another blast, she disappeared.

"Like going intangible, except with a human. It was crazy – something I've never seen before.

"Anyways, the end of the story is I got pretty banged—"

"We said all the details," Tucker glared.

"Well, the bottom line is she sorta threw me into a tree – which looking back on it was partially my fault — but my reaction time was super slow, so I couldn't go intangible in time, and plummeted into a tree, then fell down 20 or so feet to the ground. And that's why I'm in such bad shape, happy?"

"This was the same girl as before?" Tucked asked.

Danny only nodded, not trusting himself to speak in fear of revealing more.

"So where did her power come from?"

Danny scratched his head, and bit through the pain of lifting his arm. "I think it was the suit she was wearing…"

"Suit? What do you mean?" Tucker asked for the elaboration Danny wasn't sure how to give.

"Well it was a really thick white spandex for the most part — really similar to my suit actually. It almost seemed bonded to her body, again like mine. At all the joints, the material broke and a weird blue plastic connected to it. My only guess was this is what have her so much flexibility. The blue also went in a straight line down her stomach, and it looked connected to her heart somehow, if that makes any sense…" Danny recited am exactly what he thought during the brief moment where they only stared at each other.

"What did she look like? Maybe we can pin point and find her," Sam suggested.

"I doubt it — the suit covered her hair and face," Danny corrected.

Sam and Tucker were both silent, which worried Danny. They were never silent unless they had a damn good reason to be, and Danny didn't classify this as a damn good reason.

"I think we should go look for the thermos," Tucker stated, and stood up. "Are you crazy? You don't even know where I was!" Danny argued.

"Never underestimate the power of technology," Tucker's casual smirk calmed Danny. Maybe they weren't going to do something crazy after all.

"You need to sleep anyway, Danny," Sam reminded, standing up herself.

"I already did! I-I'm fine!" He faltered, and Danny now knew there was no way Sam was going to buy it.

"Your eyes are still all weird, so don't lie to yourself or me," she warned.

Danny paused, "What do you mean?"

"Well your eyes are still that weird mix between green and blue... you obviously still need to recover."

Danny realized there was no getting out if this, so he rolled over — without a grunt of pain thin time — and slowly faded off back to sleep, but not before he heard his bedroom door shut quietly.

…

"Kim!" she heard a voice call behind her, but she didn't look. She just wanted to walk away from that table, and didn't want anyone stopping her. Not the prissy Paulina, the douche Dash, the quiet Kwan, the slutty Star, or–

Try as she might, Kim couldn't think of an insult towards the Valerie girl. She seemed the most normal and genuine person of the five of them, but why would she want to hang out with people like that? Kim would rather sit by herself for the rest of the school year than ever go within a five mile radius of those kids again.

She finally reached the double doors of the cafeteria, and pushed through them. Once out of everyone's sight, she began to run towards the parking lot. As she ran, she could feel the burning sensation of tears forming, but she angrily didn't let them. She hated when she cried. It was what pathetic people did, and she was not pathetic, she was a Possible.

The doors were in the distance, and she needed to get out of them. She was coming up on them, and extended her arms out as she pushed through the double metal doors, finally emerging on the other side.

She sat on the steps, and furrowed her eye brows in anger. She kept them narrow to ensure no tears escaped, and she had almost done so successfully, but one small tear found its way down her cheek and then another and another until her cheeks were stained with wet streams. She wanted to punch herself for getting so worked up over this, and immediately blinked back any tears who thought they could get the better of her. She wiped the slug-like trails from her face, and continued to stare in the distance, scared that if she looked at anything in particular for too long she would begin crying again.

Why did people have to make fun of her? Worse than that, why did they make fun of her for her fake persona? Not a single person at this lame school knew her as the teen hero, Kim Possible, who could do anything. No one understood who she was behind the geeky glasses and the loose pony tail.

She tried thinking of what Ron would do in this situation. He would probably just laugh it off with the crowd, letting the insults roll right off his back as usual, but Kim never forgot so easily.

She could handle a few competitive insults. Hell, her and Bonnie could go on forever with each other, but at least she knew that Bonnie was doing it out of pure jealously. She had yet to figure out why these kids were so mean. Maybe she should've made friends with other kids. Then she could have been "in the loop" and performed her mission quicker, and get out of this wicked town sooner.

But it wasn't really a decision. They were the only three people that had been somewhat friendly to her, and she was growing to like the trio. Besides, when talking about her mission, there was the genius ghost hunters for Danny's parents, and then there was Paulina, who seemed to have a crush on the fiend. Maybe she had chosen her friends well after all.

But where were they? None of them showed up for lunch, and she couldn't get over how weird it was. Jazz was here, she remembered. Maybe she could talk to her.

Abruptly, she heard the door behind her open, and she began freaking out. She didn't really feel like talking to anyone. She turned around, and noticed a smiling ginger looking back at her, her blue orbs connecting with Kim's sage eyes.

"Hey, Kim," she smiled gently.

Kim didn't want to draw attention to her wet face, but she didn't want the tears to stain them anymore than they already had, so she forcefully wiped them away. "Jazz… er, what's up?"

…

"Do you see it?" Sam asked Tucker from across the field.

"Wait, we are actually just going to look for this stupid thermos? Seriously? After we shared that look, I thought—"

"What did you have in mind?" Sam asked him, smirking.

"Well I was gonna do some research on this girl."

"Are you crazy? You know nothing about her! How are you finding anything on her?"

"Well, Danny said she blasted the thermos out his hand, right?" Tucker asked, mischievously.

Sam felt herself beginning to catch on, but was still slightly confused. "That's what he said, yes."

"So, if we find the thermos, I can swab it for any ectoplasm traces, and figure out where it came from."

"How will you know where it came from…?" Sam asked. She admitted that swabbing was a cool idea, but if he'd never seen the ectoplasm before, how on Earth would he track it down?

"Well… I suppose I won't know exactly…" he responded, making Sam smiled. The Tucker she knew and occasionally hated – in a loving way – was back.

"You have Vlad and the Fenton's ectoplasm make up on file, right?" she asked, trying to make him feel better.

Tucker hesitated at the question, unsure of its importance, but answered it anyway. "… Of course."

"So if we swab any and it comes back negative, we can rule that out, right? If it comes out positive we know either the Fentons or Vlad are behind her. Right?" she smiled gently.

Tucker returned the smile, slightly more enthusiastic, though, and told her, "Okay, so I'll look over there, and you look over there," pointing in two opposite directions.

For ten minutes, Sam searched all over her specified region, but found absolutely nothing. Nothing except a whole bunch of grass and fallen leaves. She looked down at her feet, kicking the ground in annoyance. When she did so, her black boot kicked away a patch of dirt and sent it flying into the air, and then the particles dissipated into the air, and back on to the ground. She didn't think anything of it, and looked down again still fuming in frustration.

It was then that her eyes glanced at something shiny, gleaming from the dirt. She bent down to get a closer look, and noticed the thing that had caught her eyes was a piece of chrome metal. She picked it up with her fingers, and noticed the traditional overlaying pieces of metal screwed together that the Fenton's used to hold every device together. She turned towards Tucker's direction, still holding the scrap, and yelled, "Tuck! I think you should see this."

He came sprinting over, and stopped in his pace when he saw what she was holding. She stood up to meet him, and they both stared at the scrap Sam was holding. "Is that…"

"A piece of the Fenton Thermos?" she asked, finishing his question, then answering it, "Yea. I think it is."

Tucker swallowed. "So, er, how many ghosts do you think Danny had in this thing?"

Sam looked up from the fragment, and stared into Tucker's big brown eyes. "Let's hope for a small number."

He took her hand, and they both began running towards Fenton Works. Abruptly, Sam stopped running, making Tucker look towards her, but she was only looking up to the sky. He copied her example and instantly noticed what it was she was looking at.

"Ghosts," he breathed, still staring at the swirling green creatures above them.

"We gotta get to Danny," Sam reminded him, and took the lead this time, sprinting faster to his house, holding Tucker's arm in one hand and the remnant of the thermos in the other.

…

"Can I sit," Jazz smiled. Kim scooted over on the steps, welcoming her to sit down.

They sat in silence for a bit, neither of them quite knowing what to say, but then the older of the two girls finally spoke: "I wanted to thank you."

Kim was a tad caught off guard. "Th-thank me? For what?" she sniffled.

"I've been tutoring Dash since his freshman year, and he's always made rude comments about getting in my pants, but I just dealt with it. Tutoring someone for so long looks really good on college résumés… and… well… I guess I kinda pity him, you know? He seems so hopeless, even if he doesn't in front of his friends. I just… I don't know, I guess I help him out of pity. I've never been brave enough to stand up to him like you did, though. You're sort of incredible," she smiled genuinely.

Kim began to blush. Jazz was the only person in this school who understood Kim and her overcoming of the impossible, and she was really greatly for that.

"Whatever, it's no big," she returned the smile.

"Yes it is," Jazz urged, her large cerulean eyes showing the most sincere expression Kim had ever seen on anyone.

She shifted the conversation in a different direction, not wanting to talk about her feats, scared she might reveal something about her true self. "So are you going to tutor Dash after school today?"

"Er, yeah, I am," Jazz answered.

"Why?" Kim asked in disbelief. "Why do you keep going back to him?"

"He doesn't act like such a douche bag when it's just us. I feel like it's just a show he puts on for his friends. When I tutor him, he gets really self-conscience…
"Well, he does, you know, get over half wrong on every assignment, so I can guess why that would make someone self-conscience, but I still feel bad for him."

Jazz glanced behind herself, as if checking no one was standing there, and then scooted closer to Kim, and said in a hushed voice, "You know, one time, he started crying."

Kim began to giggle. "Seriously? That confident tool cried over his grades?!" she asked in disbelief, to which Jazz just nodded.

"I'm telling you, he actually does care, no matter the show that he performs every day for his 'good rep'. He genuinely wants to do better in school, and I feel like I need to help him, you know?" she smiled again.

Kim looked into those bright blue eyes of Jazz's, and told her, "Wow, you're really nice."

Jazz blushed slightly, but smiled brighter anyways. "So are you. I still can't believe what you did to defend yourself and even me," she smiled.

"Believe me, it was no big," she told her, hoping it would be dropped.

"Why do you keep saying that? It was a really awesome thing for you to do. Totally selfless and brave. I admire that."

"It's nothing compared to what I did at my old school," she smiled.

Then her voice suddenly got caught in her throat. Had she really just said that? Maybe Jazz didn't hear her. She had said it sorta soft, right? She could hear the blood pumping in her ears, and she impatiently waited for Jazz's reply.

"What?"

"What?" Kim replied, a little too quickly.

Jazz looked at her skeptically. "What did you just say?"

"I, er, didn't say anything… Right, well I should get back to class—"

"Wait! Before you go!" she caught Kim's arm. "I, er, also wanted to apologize for my brother's absence today. He… he isn't feeling very well."

"Oh, yeah, I saw him this morning, but not since," she pondered.

"Yea, he, er, went home. Like I said, not feeling so hot."

"And what about Sam and Tucker? Do you know anything about where they are?" Kim asked.

Jazz stopped. Did they really stay?! Were they that dumb?! She assumed they were just going to walk him home, but why on Earth would they stay with him! They were so bad at staying under the radar!

"They're, uh, probably around here somewhere. Probably just got caught up in work, and didn't go to lunch, is all… catch you later!" Jazz left Kim on the steps, and walked into the hall with a sigh of relief.

…

Tucker and Sam finally made it to Danny's house, and sprinted up the stairs into his room. "Danny," they huffed and panted once they were inside.

He shot his eyes open, and stared at them in shock. "What happened to you two?"

"How… how many ghosts… were in the thermos?" Tucker asked through gasps of breath.

"What?" he asked confused.

"How long ago… did you… empty the… thermos?" Sam asked in between pants.

"I, er, I'm not sure… uh, a week or so ago?" Danny guessed. "Why does it matter?"

Sam handed him the scrap of the thermos, and his breath caught in his throat. "Shit," he breathed.

As usual, please review how you liked it :)