Making friends is as easy as allowing them to play with you, as far as Youngblood is concerned, but not all of this is a game.


"Were you on a pirate ship when you were alive?"

Youngblood stilled at the clear young voice below him but didn't take his eyes off the pair of guards patrolling outside the Psi Facility that were in his sight line. It was his job to watch these two. Poindexter was checking the perimeter of the city for new cracks in its defenses or weak points to make cracks—something that strategically brought him farther away from any potential action, as far as Youngblood was concerned. Amorpho was overhead somewhere in the form of a hawk, getting as close as they could, but the glittering green dome of a ghost shield would keep them both out anyway. If Poindexter came to help, they might be able to knock out the outer shield, but they didn't know how many contingencies were in place.

"Were you a pirate?" the girl's voice repeated, and he looked down.

Five kids stood beneath his tree, staring up at him through the leaves. Two girls, three boys. One girl in a patched blue dress, the other in jeans and a t-shirt like the boys. Two of the boys had patched knees, but for the tallest of them, that patch was nearly halfway up his thigh now; the third boy still had a gaping hole in his right knee and would find himself with a new pair of shorts if it wasn't fixed soon. They were all scrawny, somewhat dirty—the smudge on the nose of the girl in the jeans told him they'd been somewhere dirty quite recently—but their hair looked clean enough, and they didn't have that sallow, gaunt look that spoke of hunger. Unless he missed his guess, none of them were older than twelve.

The parrot on his shoulder squawked and flitted to a higher branch as Youngblood moved, reaching to grab a lower limb and swing down. He settled on a thick limb about a foot above the kids' heads.

Phasing and flying was easier, but using his powers would only cause a spike in ecto-energy on any readings taken in the area—a sure sign of a free ghost this close to one of their facilities—and that would make this harder than it already was.

"Aren't the seas rough down there?" He hooked his legs around the tree and swung down to look at the others, keeping one hand on his head to keep his bandana in place—Amorpho had insisted he swap the hat for something less conspicuous—and using the other to flip up his eyepatch as he looked at each kid in turn. "You can seek refuge on my ship."

"You're a ghost," the girl with the smudge on her nose said.

"I'm a kid. Like you."

"What's the price of passage?" the tallest of the boys asked. He was three times Youngblood's height if he was an inch, which was the real kicker; usually by the time boys were that tall, they couldn't see him anymore. This beanpole of a human, on the other hand? That obviously wasn't a problem, and if he wanted to, he'd be able to swing himself up to Youngblood's branch without any trouble at all. Not like the shortest boy who'd have to either get a boost or climb up the trunk a bit before he could reach anything that would take his weight, and if he didn't know how to find the right places to climb a tree, well, he might as well be trying to climb one of those telephone poles.

It was doable, but it wasn't easy.

"Information. You answer my questions truthfully, best you can."

"Only if we get to ask you questions, too," the girl in the dress said as she reached back and started to rebraid her red hair—in anticipation of the tree climbing, he figured.

"One for one," the boy with the cornrows added, elbowing the shortest boy before any words could escape his opened mouth.

"Three to one. It's my ship."

The tall boy smiled. "Two."

Youngblood grinned and flipped his eyepatch back down. "Welcome aboard." He didn't know if he'd hold them to those terms—it would depend on if they had any actual knowledge that would be useful to him—but he could use it as an excuse not to say more than he had to.

He didn't ask the names of his new crew as they climbed up into the tree with him—that was hardly worth one of his questions—and no names were volunteered, but that was fine, because it meant he didn't have to give them one of his, either.

He told them the lay of the land—so to speak—instead. He said a mighty bad storm was brewing up ahead and that one of his old mates had been captured by an enemy ship. These people were nasty and had the latest tech that was designed to sink ships like theirs. They had to be careful and couldn't give away their position.

"We need a better vantage point than this," Smudge said. "We should head over there."

Youngblood followed her finger and shook his head. "Too close. There are proximity sensors around there. We can't risk it."

"You mean you can't risk it," Shorty grumbled.

"If he can't risk it, then you and I can go and report back," Red announced. "Permission to use your spyglass, Captain?"

Youngblood grinned and handed it over. "Permission granted." By itself, it shouldn't be enough to cause them any issues.

She tucked it carefully into the makeshift pocket sewn into her dress—something made evident by its bright red colour—and then looked over at Shorty. "Go on, get down." She met Youngblood's eyes and added, "I'll keep an eye on him, Captain. Promise."

Beanpole and Braids exchanged glances, but neither offered to go in Red's place. Instead, Beanpole looked at Youngblood and said, "I've got a question. How much of this is a game?"

Shorty paused as if to hear the answer, but Red shoved him. He lost his grip and his balance, coming down hard on the grass with a thud instead of a sickening crack. His subsequent cursing was worthy of a sailor worth his weight in salt, but he climbed to his feet without any trouble, so he couldn't be seriously hurt.

Youngblood waited until Red had dragged Shorty out of earshot before saying, "I like to play games."

"That's not what I asked."

No, it wasn't, and by the terms he'd agreed to, Youngblood had to answer—or his parrot might decide to do the honourable thing and speak up for him, which would be a disaster. Youngblood didn't want a lecture right now. Bones was keeping out of sight, which meant he was also keeping out of Youngblood's hair, but he would not miss an opportunity to point out a mistake.

"Games are how I get through things," he said. That was sort of an answer, but Beanpole was pursing his lips, so it wasn't enough of an answer. "They have one of my friends."

He didn't need to say who they were.

"Human or ghost?" Braids asked.

Youngblood hesitated. Phantom's nature still wasn't widely known in the human world; according to Ember, that was so it would be easier to paint him as a villain. The smear campaign against Phantom was more fervent than most, and his human side might win him more sympathy.

But that human side wouldn't help him now. "Ghost."

"It'd be easier to rescue a human," Braids muttered, but Smudge shook her head.

"It's easier to smuggle a ghost, at least if you have someone around to fool their fancy ecto-tech."

Braids blinked. "You wanna bring in the twins on this?"

"We don't know anyone better."

"You can't help," Youngblood said. This went far beyond trading for information. He couldn't—

Smudge stuck out her chin at him. "Says who?"

Amorpho would make the rest of his afterlife miserable if he got a bunch of new friends involved. "My friend. They wouldn't want you to help. They'd think it's too dangerous." For someone who loved the spotlight so much, going to ground had been hard on Amorpho. Youngblood didn't understand what was in most of those textbooks Poindexter tried to show him every few months, but he was pretty sure Amorpho's attitude towards, well, everything these days fell very clearly in a category labelled overcompensating in giant letters.

"Your friend isn't here," Beanpole said. "That's the point. And the problem."

"Different friend," Youngblood said, though he doubted Phantom would be wild about the idea, either. Or Poindexter, for that matter. "If you wanna help, you can answer my questions." He nodded towards the guards as they reached the edge of their wall, turned, and headed back. "When do those guys switch out? Or how often?"

"Eighteen hundred hours is the next exchange," Braids said without missing a beat. "It's been a shorter schedule the last few days, every four hours instead of every eight. My brother said it used to be twelve, back before they got more recruits."

He should've pretended to be something besides a pirate. A spy, maybe. He'd thought he could pretend Phantom was the treasure, but this felt more like spy stuff than pirate stuff. Or maybe he could be knight, come to free the person trapped by the bad guys. Or maybe he should just call himself a thief.

"Knowing their schedule won't help you if you can't get close," Smudge added. "Even if the twins are on board, I don't know how long they could take down the shield and the sensors for. If you got caught on the inside, you'd be stuck. You need one of us to go in."

Youngblood shook his head. "You might not be thrown into a cell, but you would be questioned. And washed." Which would destroy the rest of them, especially if they came from sympathizing families—and he couldn't see how they didn't, seeing as they were offering to help him instead of reporting him and reaping those benefits.

The Guys in White wouldn't need to be able to see him to capture him. They could track him with their tech once they knew to use it.

"I can go," Beanpole said. "Say I'm a new recruit or something."

Youngblood shook his head. "You'd need more than height to pass."

"My brother might do it," Braids said. "It's not like he'd have to walk up to the door and introduce himself as a new recruit; he'd just have to use that as an excuse if anyone caught him. We wouldn't lose anything if I asked him, anyway."

They might. Youngblood would have to tell them more of the plan, what they were trying to do, before Braids's brother had a hope of agreeing to help. And even if he went in, he might not make it back out. Or he might not make it back out as the same person. The risks were there even if Amorpho could help them scrape together an appropriate disguise.

"We might be able to steal a suit from the dry cleaners," suggested Smudge slowly. "They're always busy, and we'd just have to make sure we pick out any stitching and stuff that's meant to identify them. He could be pretend to be a transfer, and if the twins can get us a map of the base—"

"That'll only help if your friend is likely to be held somewhere that's on the map," Beanpole interrupted. Youngblood squirmed under his gaze. "Are they? Do you have any idea?"

"How could he?" Smudge asked. "It's not like he can get much closer than this."

They could with Technus's help, but he was still busy elsewhere. That's why the three of them were trying to do this. Phantom's parents might want to help with any actual rescuing, though truthfully Youngblood wasn't sure how they could do that when anyone with eyes would recognize them. Jack Fenton was hardly inconspicuous even when he was trying to be. Then again, if he played up that angle and posed as outspoken agent—

No.

Youngblood didn't think it would work.

These people would be more prepared for the Fentons than they were for ghosts, and that was saying something.

Phantom was the entire reason the Fentons had left in the first place, after all.

"He's important," Youngblood said.

Braids raised an eyebrow. "How important is important?"

"More important than the rest of us. They'd keep him somewhere safe. Safest place they had."

"So important enough that we might've heard of him?" pressed Braids.

Youngblood had no idea what news the Guys in White were putting out these days—news was boring; when it was important enough to affect him, someone else made sure he knew about it—but he didn't need to know the news to know the answer to that question. Phantom's fame had long stretched past Amity Park. "What do you think?"

"I think yes," Beanpole said, "or you'd have said no."

Whatever. Youngblood would cross that bridge when he came to it. If these guys weren't going in, they didn't need to know, and it was better they didn't.

He might've said too much already.

He had a pouch of dream dust from Nocturne to use if he got into a tight spot, but they'd been hoping to save that for the actual break-in. It was still risky; a cocky ectopus had been destabilized into a pile of goo at Delta the other week, and Youngblood did not want to experience that personally.

He didn't know if it was something he could come back from.

He wasn't sure he knew of any ghost who'd come back from that except Danielle—or whatever name she was going by now—and hers was hardly a normal case.

"I'm just here to learn whatever I can."

"Reconnaissance," Smudge said. "Yeah, we figured. But you'll want to rescue your friend sooner rather than later. What's the harm in asking for help? If any of us were going to tell on you, we'd have done it already."

A sudden terror gripped Youngblood, and it wasn't until he could pick out Red's hair that he relaxed. She and Shorty were both there. They were safe.

Bones should've alerted him if they'd tried to sneak off, Youngblood supposed, but Youngblood really wasn't sure how observant Bones was when he was figuring out the best lecture to give next.

"See if your brother's up for it," Youngblood said to Braids, "and I'll see what my barrelman says."

The others glanced up, but they wouldn't be able to see anything through the foliage.

"If it's a go on both sides, I'll fill you in, and we can draw up a proper plan to get the treasure."

The kids agreed and then scattered, Beanpole breaking off from the other two to grab Red and Shorty.

Youngblood waited until he was sure they were out of earshot before calling, "Bones?"

"Do you think that was wise?" the parrot asked in a tone of voice that suggested it was not.

"I'm hoping you can find out. Follow them for me?"

"The things I do for you," the parrot groused, but he still took off after them, and that was all that Youngblood cared about.

Well.

It was mostly all that Youngblood cared about.

He'd still have to break the news to Amorpho—and Poindexter, but he'd take it better. Amorpho was more of a wild card. He wouldn't like a bunch of humans stepping up to steal his thunder, especially unknown humans. Youngblood figured they could use all the help they could get, though.

He wasn't convinced they'd be able to breach enemy territory without incurring losses otherwise.