Chapter 6

"We could try to recreate how we got here," Jazz offered as she and Danny stood by the table, putting everything his sister had taken off of it back.

"We could," Amanda said over the sound of running water as she washed their breakfast dishes. "Danny's gotten better with EMFs since last night." She looked out through the window and caught Danny's eyes as she added with a smile, "Who knows, maybe you'll need to manipulate electromagnetic fields back in Amity Park."

"I hope not," Danny said with an airy laugh as he looked back at the fake flowers he was putting back in the center of the table. "Give me ectoplasm any day."

The water cut off a moment before Amanda came back into the living room. She pulled out her phone and held it in both hands, getting Danny's attention as he registered this was her strange way of waiting for his attention. He sat back a bag of what felt like more fake flowers, checking the corner Jazz had filled with the junk to see they were done before turning to the girl.

"Can I get a picture with y'all?" Amanda asked, her southern accent showing up again.

"Both of us?" Jazz asked, pointing between herself and Danny.

"Well, yeah," Amanda said with a wide smile.

Danny gave a glance at Jazz, finding amusement out of her confusion. Looking back at the local he smiled and said, "Sure."

Amanda stepped closer, holding the phone so the screen showed them. She looked up at the camera and said, "Smile."

Danny wrapped an arm around Jazz to pull her closer and made a quick decision that he would never have thought of back home. He created the lights around his waist and changed to Phantom as the camera activated in the phone.

Amanda lowered the device, poking something with her thumb before showing them the picture. "Wow, the camera had no idea what to do with that," Amanda said with a laugh.

Danny looked at the picture to see what she meant. The two rings had made it to his chest and thighs by the time the camera captured but the space in between almost looked like fog. "Can I see your camera?" Danny asked, curious what he would look like now that he was fully changed.

Amanda hit a button by the bottom of the screen, getting it back to an active camera, and handed it to him.

Danny looked at himself, seeing what he expected in the screen acting like a mirror. He held it up and poked the button she had to take another picture. The phone took his picture once more, getting him to bring the finished photo up. He stared in surprise as the camera captured the wall behind him, leaving him a foggy image.

"Makes sense," Amanda said, looking at the picture from her side. She looked up at him and added, "That's how camera's capture ghosts here."

"That's so weird," Jazz said, looking at the screen from Danny's other side.

Amanda left his side and stepped back to the TV, kneeling down to power on a device. "You think to send you two back everything should be how it was last night?" Amanda asked, standing up to grab the green DVD case.

Jazz left Danny's side to step closer to the local, saying, "Yeah, that'd be the best start."

Danny gave one last look at his ghostly picture before he sat the phone on the cluttered table to follow the girls over.

"Well, I was at the end of Control Freaks," Amanda said, selecting a disk from the case. She put it into the machine, ending a blue screen saver as it started playing the disk. She grabbed the controller he had remembered from last night and took a seat on the sofa. "The TV started having some artifacting close to the end of the episode," she mumbled as a jewelry robbery opened the episode.

Danny watched, almost amazed, as an event that he had little memory of played out at fast speed on the screen. Amanda hit play as Jack was running towards the RV. The camera changed to Freakshow on top of the train as it road down the tracks with his staff in his hand.

"Don't just stand there, finish them!" Freakshow ordered.

"Maybe you should try holding that thing up a little higher," Tucker said.

"This was about when it started, "Amanda pointed out.

Pushing his curiosity away, Danny grabbed the Fenton Thermos from beside Amanda's foot. He gripped it tight in his right hand as he took hold of Jazz's hand in his other. He floated off the ground, giving his sister the feeling as it felt like a stronger electrical currant was trying to buzz through-out him.

"Very good, drone," Freakshow was saying, holding out his hand to the camera. "Now, bring me my staff. Come on, bring it," he said, making a sound like was getting a dog's attention.

Danny floated closer to the TV, watching himself holding tight to the red mind controlling staff.

"Fight it, Danny," Sam cried. "He's not holding the crystal ball anymore. You are!"

"Silence!" Freakshow ordered.

Danny shoved the thermos into his pocket and floated closer to the TV. He reached out with the hand towards the screen as he watched the train crossing over a bridge. Green electrical sparks bounced across the glove.

"It's the crystal ball or your friend, Danny, your choice," Sam said, backing away from the other ghosts reaching for her. Her foot slipped off the train's roof as she called out, "I didn't mean that to be so literal!" She let out a scream as she fell from the train into the gorge below, the same scream he and Jazz had heard yesterday.

Fear for her burned in his gut as he touched the TV and felt it start to suck him and Jazz back inside it. He tightened his grip on Jazz's hand as he felt a strong burst of electricity run through him once more. Once again he tasted coper, his vision covered in static as he tried to find their way back to the old tube TV in the lab.

The portal spit them out, head first, into the basement lab. Danny landed harshly against the concrete floor, releasing his grip on Jazz.

Instantly the electricity left his body, giving him cool relief even through the hard impact. He pushed himself up and looked to his left to see his sister pushing herself up. "You okay?" Danny checked before looking around at the lab. Nothing seemed different from when they had left less than twenty-four hours ago, and he couldn't tell how much time had passed in this world.

"Yeah, I think so," Jazz said. She turned to him as she sat on her heels and asked, "You?"

"Solid," Danny admitted. He floated to his feet as he changed back to Fenton and held out a hand to his sister. "How long do you think it's been?"

Jazz took the hand and looked on the wall behind Danny as she was pulled to her feet. "Either half or a full day."

"Huh?"

"We left a few minutes before five," Jazz said, freeing her hand to point at the wall. Danny twisted to follow her finger, seeing she had pointed at the green stereotypical ghost clock. "It's five o'two."

Danny turned back to her and silently stepped to the workbench that sat beside the strange TV portal, looking at the calendar tacked onto the wall. "Well, Dad hasn't marked off the fifteenth," he said, knowing his father was almost religious in marking days off on this calendar. He turned back to Jazz and asked, "But how come it didn't send us into tomorrow? We were over there for hours."

"It was also twenty twenty-two over there," Jazz pointed out, throwing a thumb over her shoulder at the TV contraption. She stepped forward and rubbed a hand playfully through his hair before leaving for the stairs. "Something I've learned from you, little brother. There's going to be things I can't answer."

Danny ran a hand through his bangs, getting them to fall back how he liked them to, and smiled at his sister's retreating form. "Hey!" he let out, unable to hide his smile.

The End