A/N: Hello and welcome to chapter 3! Nothing much to report on this update other than the fact Lore posts for Passion will be beginning this weekend on my tumblr blog. I'll link that once again in the end notes!

Summary:

Valerie hears about the aftermath of the eel's rampage through town. Her morning is interrupted by a certain technology obsessed spook...

Warnings:

Canon-typical violence, mild verbal-based bullying

Treasured: valued (especially having a personal value)

Taint(ed): A tinge, trace or touch. ... To contaminate or corrupt (something) with an external agent, either physically or morally. ... Infection; corruption; deprivation.

6:47am, October 18th , 2005; Amity Park

Val summited the steps to Casper High, jacket already sliding off her shoulders before she entered the building. The air roiled out of the open school entrance, wet like a sauna, blasting her in the face like a slap of fresh caught seafood at a fish market, and twice as rank. The only thing she disliked about fall semester was the way they cranked the heat like they were trying to fend off the Ice Age. She didn't like the cold, hated it in fact, but hundreds of sweaty teens stuffed into a building made the air sluggish and smelly. She didn't enjoy breathing through her mouth to avoid the recycled, funky air of the high school. Worst of all, despite the broiling temperatures, she always felt freezing. But if I wear my jacket, I'll need to change clothes before lunch . She shoved her jacket into her backpack, and started off towards her locker, squeezing around the already clammy bodies of her fellow students.

"The blackout trashed my cell yesterday." The teen who had the locker next to her was loitering around today, leaning against the metal of the lockers, chatting with his friends.

"Ugh, yours too?" His friend responded, holding up the blackened screen of his Razor.

"Yup, looks like the power surge fried everything in the house. Er, well, not everything. My Funstation 3 survived, oh and my mom's KitchenAid. My dad is completely mystified about that, though, since they were both plugged in."

"Weird, my gaming computer made it too, not that I'm complaining," she watched as the first boy waved his hands around for emphasis, "that thing cost thousands of dollars."

"Don't you have it plugged into a surge protector?"

"Yeah, usually, but my stupid baby sister wanted to use the plug for something, so she switched it to the wall outlet."

"Damn, dude, you got lucky!" He slammed the locker closed next to her, a textbook in one hand and his fried phone in the other. "The only thing of my dad's that made it was his PDA. He's pretty miffed about that too man. His alarm clock got toasted, so he missed getting up in time for breakfast, but his planner still functions to remind him how many appointments he'd miss if he didn't get it in gear."

"Feels like a metaphor about adulthood or something." The two wandered away, getting sidetracked into a discussion about the horrors of growing up and not playing video games all day. She shoved her textbooks for the first half of the day into her overly-stuffed backpack and carefully zipped it closed. It would be safer to just wrap the jacket around her waist, but the last time she'd done that, Dash and his little crew of gremlins had soaked it down with water. She hated the cold enough. She had no desire to risk hypothermia by walking home in wet clothes.

Her attention drifted back to the talk in the crowd, more comments about the upcoming dance dominated the conversations. She passed a group of girls discussing their dress options on the way to homeroom, and another group giggling about some fancy shrine. That did sound intriguing. "So, you put an offering on the altar, and then you tell it who you want to ask you out."

"Does it work?"

"Um, it did get Kevin to ask me out." The teen twirled a piece of her hand around her finger, leaning down closer to her friends. "The thing is, though, even though he took me on a date, it was the worst date I've ever had."

"So it can't guarantee the date will be perfect?"

"I think you have to ask something else for that to work? I only asked that he'd take me on a date."

"That's what you get for not being specific enough, Kim." The group giggled and Valerie drifted closer. This was a new bit of gossip. She stopped to lounge against a wall, pulling out her phone to cover for her eavesdropping.

"Oh come on, Melissa, I didn't think I needed to specify: make sure he doesn't crash the car, insult the waitress, and try to grab your boob without asking."

"Maybe the problem there was Kevin, and there was a reason the universe didn't let him ask you out before." The brunette pursed her lips around the comment, clearly trying to soften the blow of the suggestion.

"But he's so cute, Mel…" Her blonde friend pouted, shifting from one foot to the other in her high-heeled snow boots. Tripping hazard, no grip and all twisted ankle on the ice. She got the idea behind the shoes, they did make her legs look great, but no one looked good in a medical boot. She frowned as the memories of her own stint in one during sixth grade came back. She'd learned her lesson.

"Just because boys are cute doesn't make them smart...or even nice. Maybe ask the Ceris shrine for a nice date this time."

"I don't care if he's the sweetest boy on the planet if he looks like a foot."

"So make sure you ask that he's nice and hot. This doesn't seem like that big of a deal."

"Is there, like, a limit to what you can ask for?" Their third friend finally joined the conversation.

"All I heard is: the bigger the request, the larger the offering."

"Where do you send those offerings?" Valerie finally interrupted, walking into the circle of girls.

"Uh, why do you care, Gray? I don't think even the Goddess of Love herself could get you a date." Kimberley Drayson was on the cheer-squad, and ranked as some peripheral hanger-on of Paulina in the school hierarchy. Higher than her, and most girls, but third rate popular. "I guess you're not the most undateable girl in school; you do have that ass going for you."

"Thanks Kim, glad you noticed. Hey, maybe that's why Kevin hadn't asked you out before, on account of him always talking about being an 'ass man' to his friends."

"He was just too nervous to ask out a varsity cheer member; he told me so!" She shifted her weight onto one hip, idly checking her nails.

"Is that why he's dating Bethany now?" The amount of amusement she got from the other girl's widened eyes and pooched out bottom lip was probably a little reasonable. "He's been taking her into Nasty Burger, all cuddled up in the booths, locking lips half the time they are in the store."

"She told me they weren't dating! That lying little ska—"

"—Maybe that little love shrine can help you out?" She needled, trying to get more info out of the trio of girls. It sounded supernatural and, in this town, that meant ghost business.

"Once again, loser, why do you care? You hoping Kwan will look your way? Oh no, wait, weren't you dating that ultra-loser Fenton? What? Even he won't ask you to the dance?" Kim was in rare form this morning.

"Nothing that interesting, I was wondering if you could use it for something."

"Other than dates?"

"Other than dates," she confirmed, rucking her backpack farther up on her shoulders. "If it can be used to get dates, could it be used to block others from getting dates?"

"You think that's to blame for your drought of attention?"

"I don't care about the little boys in this school, Kim," she smiled at the expressive scowl on the other girl's face, "but you were just whining about Kevin and Brian and Noah and how your love life has come to a sudden halt." She watched as the girl put her suggestion together. "I might have no social life, but shouldn't the third on the varsity cheer-squad have boys just knocking down her door?"

"You're not that altruistic."

"I'm not," she agreed, turning to walk towards homeroom before the bell, "but I am nosy , and I can't help but feel curious about a magical love shrine that grants you any date you want." She left the conversation there, knowing she could pick it up later at lunch. Just putting the idea in Kim's head that the shrine could be used for malicious intent would spread it around school. She'd have the location of the spot before the end of the day.

Homeroom gave way to first period, first to second and then third, and all the way, every passed note and whispered word was about the dance or the blackouts. That rankled her, irking at her well-earned sense of calm. If Phantom hadn't gotten in her way last night, the damage would have been minimized. Instead, between the ecto-blasts, the weapon's fire, and the ghost's feeding antics, the power-grid around Amity was in shambles. The most necessary parts of it still functioned, the junctions heading to the hospital or the train signals left untouched, but big chunks of Main street were without power. The cold of the autumn days kept the worst from happening in grocery stores, gas stations, and corner stores around Amity, but that was forestalling the inevitable. It hadn't hit the office buildings downtown or the richest parts of town, so it was mostly the working class and poor who were inconvenienced.

She lived across the river in Elmerton now, so they'd avoided having to shiver all night in their drafty apartment during a blackout. At least, one caused by the ghost eel instead of their supers' incredibly sketchy repair jobs. She passed another note to the person behind her, mind replaying the interactions with Phantom the day before. He'd been trying to placate the other ghost. Or maybe he was trying to trick it so he could suck it into that metal soup container he carried around. She considered. She had no idea how it worked, and asking about it once got a reply so glib and brusque she hadn't bothered since. Clearly, he was touchy about his magic soup can. She peeked at a note for her, from Hilary again, and rolled her eyes when it was another fashion inquiry. Maybe she should just write back, so the girl stopped asking…

He'd been so insistent she not hurt the thing. He never had problems shooting ghosts before, so what was his deal? That's not entirely true. He likes that nasty little puppy dog. She hummed, lost in thought, as she scribbled out a reply to Hilary. Maybe Phantom was an animal lover? She'd been trying to puzzle out that enigma of a ghost since she'd started hunting. Her research into ghosts led her to the expert consensus ghosts all had an obsession, but Phantom's was proving difficult to pin down. She passed her reply to Hilary to her left and trusted it would make it to its destination.

"Unfortunately, the power surges last night destroyed the electronics inside our projector, so we're going to be watching a movie about covalent and other bonds instead." A cheer went up throughout the classroom, and Mrs. Cunningham's face slid into a glare. "I expect you kids to pay attention to the lesson, so fill out this worksheet while you watch." The groans were twice as loud as the cheering.

She tapped her pen against her desk and she thought about the blackouts in more detail. The pattern of what areas were without power were random, because the eel had no brain and just chomped down on anything that looked tasty, but there was something about the tech that survived that bugged her. All throughout the first part of the morning, she'd heard stories of electronics making it through the surges. There wasn't any real pattern, which in and of itself seemed weird. Not all of it was brand-new tech with surge protection built in, in fact some of that had been fried. Not all of it was computers, or laptops, or kitchen appliances, or anything. The only thing they seemed to have in common was that their owners were extremely happy that this one thing at least made it.

At first, she'd brushed it off as people being grateful something made it through the blackout, but the more she listened, the more apparent it became that the pieces of technology that didn't get zapped were people's favorite toys. That was weird, and weird things in this town meant ghost business. The thing was, she couldn't figure out how the eel would have spared people's favorite technology. If it wasn't the eel at all, then maybe —

Ice seeped into the room, spiraling across the floor and windows, fogging them in a delicate array of snowflakes and ice crystals. Her breath clouded in front of her, a shivering traveling down her spine as the room's temperature dove below freezing. A ghost, and a powerful one at that. The school was rarely bothered. What ghost would want to risk invading 'Lunch Lady's' territory?

"Good morning, children! I, Technus, Master Of All Technology, have come to grace you with my presence! Your computer lab contains the instruments of my ascendancy to world domination!"

Right, that's who. She thought about the spared tech, and considered if this ghost had anything to do with it. Maybe, he is the electronics nut among the Amity regular spooks. She glanced around the room, taking in the faces of her classmates. They ranged from bored to frustrated. I guess they were looking forward to the movie. She thought as the TV, VCR, and the cart it was on floated in the front of the room. On the TV sat an image of Technus, arms akimbo, floating above a void in his typical outfit.

"Come on, man, it's never movie day in Mrs. Cunningham's class." Josh tossed a water bottle at the floating television, and for not the first time she wondered if the students in her school were a little too inured to the reality of ghosts.

"Foolish human child! Soon, I, Technus, will rule all! Your pointless 'Movie Days' will not matter in the face of my awesome might and authority."

"Booo! I hate this flick! Come on, dipshit, you know Phantom's just going to defeat you!"

"SILENCE!" The cart jumped up and down a few times in Technus' rage, an aura of electrical sparks flying around the flashing piece of technology. "What you think soon won't matter, because as we speak, I am hacking into the brand-new computers of your precious laboratory to upload my consciousness to the internet!"

"Didn't you already try this, man?" Josh tossed a wet wad of paper at the front of the TV, his face the picture of nonchalance. "If you give up and run away now, then Phantom won't shove you into the metal soup can thing. I bet it's cramped in there."

"Insolent human brat, you will be my first victim!" A blast of electricity shot out of the VCR, arcing across the room towards Josh's position. With a yelp, the boy ducked under his desk, and the irreverent attitude of the rest of the teens broke, screams filling the room. "Yes, YES! Flee from my wrath, pathetic human worms, for it is potent and deadly!"

Valerie took the opportunity to run out of the room with the rest of her classmates, working away from the corralling efforts of her chemistry teacher and towards the condemned girls' bathroom on the second floor. She could suit up in there, and spice up her morning by punching Technus in the face a few times.

After contorting herself in a few uncomfortable positions in the janitor's closet to change—the girl's bathroom was full of terrified, shivering girls trying to hide from the ghost—Valerie was in full Red Huntress mode. Now, more than a little pissed off about having to change in the putrid freezing closet instead of a bathroom stall, she pressed a button on her left arm to track Technus' ecto-signature. He, and many of the other regular troublemakers, were already locked into her suit's memory banks. She relished in the feeling of it hugging around her, warm and tight and responsive, as she scanned the halls for the technology-obsessed ghost's influence.

There was energy in the computer lab on the first floor, of course, but that wasn't the highest concentration of his spectral energy. Instead, that was coming from all around the school. She refined her scan, and it pinpointed the source as the bell and intercom system. She groaned, stopping in the middle of a deserted hallway to think. He was so spread out that attacking him would be difficult. His consciousness was streaming through the wires that made up most of the school, how was she going to kick him out? If she could send out a counter-signal, that would force Technus out of the intercom system and into a form she could punch. A more punchable form was her preference for a number of reasons. "Ok, girl, just take a look through your arsenal. There's gotta be something you can use." She stuck with a smaller number of her favorite guns when hunting most of the time, but there were some more unusual options in the ends of the menus.

A quick check through her entire load out brought up three or four potential options. The first was something like an EMP, but for ghost energy. If I set this near the greatest concentration in the walls, it might be enough to force him to manifest. She thought through her plan for another few seconds and dismissed it. No, instead of heading for a single point, she should set it where it could blast the most area at once. Even if that didn't force Technus out of the wires, another of her weapons could once he was more concentrated. She flew out of the hall, and down a set of stairs at the front of the school, hovering in the entrance as she pulled out the mini-bomb.

She dropped the metal ball with a 'clunk' into the stone floors of the front entrance, and set it off remotely, after backing away a few feet just in case. A metal screech, like an old modem crossed with the worn out brakes of a car, came out of the school speakers. She covered her ears as garbled wails joined the original screeching noise, rising and lowering in pitch randomly as the volume increased. Even if it didn't drag him out of the speakers, it definitely hurt.

"Ghost hunter, how dare you attack me in such an excruciating way!" Seems like his ability to speak has returned, fantastic.

"If you leave the school willingly, I might blast one less hole in you on the way out, Technus."

"You must be a fool if you think I'll give up that easily." The intercom screeched throughout the school, the echoes of the declaration creating a bouncing cacophony off every wall in the building. A dull green glow tinged the air, the buzz of angry ecto-energy filling up every nook and cranny of the school grounds. "If that's the best you can do, you better give up now!"

"That might be the best she can do, but it's not the best I can do, Technus." In flew Danny Phantom darting through the front doors of the school, intangibility carrying him into the middle of the room to float next to her. "Hey Huntress, how's it going?"

"It's been better. You know, yesterday a crazy ghost wasn't trying to upload his consciousness to the internet to take over the world."

"Wait, that's his plan? He already tried that!"

"So he's running out of ideas, or he's too stupid to remember he already tried this." She shifted on her board to face the other ghost-powered pain in her ass. "A previously defeated plan doesn't help us beat him this time, does it?"

"Not really? Last time, he tried to take over the Doom servers to control the internet. This time, I think he's just after the computer lab? Maybe he realized basically every modern computer has an internet connection."

"How is he the 'Master Of All Technology' if he doesn't know that?" She took out another EMP bomb and the electro-gun that was her second choice. The two of them should get the job done.

"What's in that bomb?" His face looked worried, a pinching around his eyes matching the way he slowly backed away from her.

"It's just an electrical pulse. It wouldn't hurt him if he was physically manifested, but since he wants to play hide and seek…" She tossed it on the floor, wincing as another detonation brought out an even louder set of wails.

"Oh boy," Phantom covered his ears, eyes screwed shut, "that noise is awful."

"I'm not enjoying his screaming either."

"No, the...of course you can't hear it. The bomb makes this god awful high-pitched ring, only way louder than like a doorbell or a phone alarm. It's like it's piercing through my brain."

"You don't have a brain."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a moron." He huffed and glared at the wires that Technus was still pointedly refusing to exit.

"No, I mean, you literally don't have a brain. Ghosts don't have internal organs. You're all ectoplasm except the core."

"No, that's not true; I definitely have internal organs."

"I'm sure you believe that—"

"I've seen mine." He stubbornly insisted, gathering an ecto-blast into his right palm.

"How?" That caught her attention. Ghosts lied, all of them did, but this was a weird thing to lie about. It might hint at his obsession. Maybe he protects Amity because he thinks he's human or something? She considered, charging up her electro-gun and taking aim at the greatest concentration of Technus' energy. When she looked over at the teen shaped ghost next to her, his face gave her the shivers.

"Oh, you know, someone decided to slash at me with a sword. Cut me right open. Got a real close look at my ribs and part of my stomach."

He had to be lying. She didn't want to consider what it meant if he wasn't lying. She fired off her gun, and it slammed into the wall, energy dissipating into a wave that traveled through the wires of the intercom system. Technus let out another miserable screech. All this noise, and he still wasn't budging. "You wanna help?"

"I am helping…" He trailed off, drifting closer to one of the walls. The energy he'd been charging in his palm, that she'd assumed was an ordinary ecto-blast, disappeared into the brick as he pressed his hand into it. Through her visor, she could see it travel along the wires, concentrating Technus' energy into a small area. "Ok, fire at that spot." His eyes were closed, her scanners showed he was still pushing energy into the wall. Neat trick. She took aim at the amassed blob of technology ghost, and let loose another shot from her electro-gun. It sailed through the air, sizzling and snapping sounds accompanying the scent of ozone, before absorbing right into the area with the "Master Of All Technology". With one final distorted scream, he popped out of the wall, form jagged and misty before it took proper shape.

"You awful little brats! Do you have any idea how much that stings?!" He gathered an attack in each hand, hair flying wildly around his head, eyes deepening to a vivid emerald. His power painted the area neon pink. "I should blast holes clean through your cores for interfering with my masterful plan."

"Give it up, dude. You're outnumbered and outgunned. If you just come quietly into the Thermos, I'll only punch you once for ruining my morning." He threw up a glowing hand to emphasize his point, and feeling generous, she joined him by raising one of her weapons.

"The only person going quietly will be the two of you to your demise!" He fired a blast from both hands, one aimed at each of them. They missed, one going wide around Red Huntress and the other dodged via intangibility by Phantom.

"Wow, and you said I had Stormtrooper aim last night. He didn't even get close to blasting me."

"I wasn't aiming for you…" Behind her, she heard the screech of something tearing away from the brick wall, the sharp grind of metal on stone filled the air, and she turned with trepidation to face the animated wires and lines that made up the security system charging towards her.

It snaked through the air, whipping around like a thing possessed, slicing through the space of the school foyer on a single-minded path towards her skull. She ducked away, twisting for extra measure to avoid the other end, as it righted itself after its lunge and wobbled back and forth on the ground. The twisted mix of metal and boxes shambled around, as if trying to get its bearings, before launching at her again. This time, she took out her sword and slashed it as it rushed past, chopping it into a few smaller pieces.

Those smaller pieces were no less aggressive though, and they rounded on her with sharpened edges, courtesy of her own weapon. They scratched against her suit, ineffectually, making shallow cuts that were easily sealed with a thought. Another few slashes with her sword left them too tiny to maneuver themselves and, with a final blast from an ecto-gun, she brought the whole mass of tangled wires and metal to a halt. It slumped to the floor. "That's the little distraction taken care of. How's it going, Phantom?" She pitched her voice into a yell at the end, casting the question into the open space of the foyer.

"It's been better," he answered, mirroring her earlier.

"I thought you were gonna shove him in your magical soup container, and you didn't need my help."

"Uh, I distinctly remember telling Technus it was a two on one."

"Did you?" She flew towards the side of the room, watching the two ghosts trade blows. A thought came to her, just letting them wear each other down so she could take both out at once. She dismissed it. As much as Phantom got on her last nerve, he did make patrolling easier, and he had been right about Vlad Masters. That was worth something, not trust, but maybe a little loyalty.

"I did, actually!" He yelped, dodging a blast from Technus, shield coming up to keep the other ghost from damaging school property. "So if you're done playing with those wires, could you come over here and help?"

She thought about it, and moved to change weapons to a set that would hurt Phantom less. She jumped when they shifted over at her thought, not even having to type in the command. She really did love this suit.

"Hello?" Phantom sounded a little strained that time, I better get in there.

With a shift of her weight to re-balance, she brought up a new gun and lobbed a shot at the distracted Technus. It slammed into his unprotected side, and she smiled as he screamed and clutched at the area. "You like that one? It's supposed to work well on ghosts with your type of core. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

"Meddlesome girl, I'm going to blast you out of t—" an ecto-blast to the back sent him flying across the room and into a wall.

"Uh, you have two opponents, remember?" Phantom hovered on his other side, helping to hem him in against the wall he'd exited not five minutes prior. A mischievous grin lit his lips, and Valerie decided to move a few extra feet away. Ghost mischief was always bad news.

"I am not yet defeated, and neither of you together nor apart will manage it!"

"Man, what's it like being that delusional and confident all the time?" He raised a handful of cool blue energy, and the previously icy temperature in the room dropped even further. She groaned as her suit's warming function kicked into overdrive. She didn't exactly hate his ice attacks, but using one when it was already below zero wasn't improving her mood. The attack caught the lower half of Technus as he tried to dodge, the technology ghost's intangibility proving ineffective.

"How come he can't avoid your ice attack with intangibility?"

"Wait, you can tell he was trying to use it?"

"I have lots of readouts in this visor," she tapped it for emphasis and raised a brow through the clear bulletproof glass of the helmet. "This thing has more abilities in one arm than you've got in your whole body, ghost boy."

"I doubt that." He dodged around a sloppy attack from the other ghost and fired off another ice blast. This one missed after Technus broke his way out of the first bit of ice. "I can do this all day, but the longer it takes, the more pissed off you'll make me." He said to the other ghost.

"Gonna answer my question?"

"Don't feel like it." Stubborn, frustrating ghost asshole. Couldn't he just be honest for once? She brought up another new scanner in her visor and tried to track the flow of energy between the two ghostly fighters. A few moments of observation proved Phantom could control the phase of his ice attacks. That had been her assumption, but his answering was quicker. She flicked a wrist to bring up another gun, unneeded scan already fading out of her HUD.

"Well, don't bother, I know now." She watched as his face scrunched up, confusion written in the line of his brows and squint of his eyes.

"Wait really? Because I—" He cut himself off, dodging around another attack and firing one off himself.

"No, wait, do you actually not know why?"

"I know why! I just don't understand how you can see that with your little tech visor."

"It's state of the art." She boasted, already rounding on Technus to blast him out of the front of the school. Her shot was true, forcing the ghost through the doors and out onto the front lawn. He skipped twice before coming to a landing in a heap on the ice covered grass. "And it's an art that's like a Swiss clock, precise and effective."

"That analogy sucked!" He called as he flew out after the other ghost, left hand already glowing with another ecto-blast.

She considered following after the both of them, when she realized she still needed to get back to class and cover her disappearance somehow. The longer she was gone, the more outlandish her story would have to be. And with Technus out of the school and being chased off campus by Phantom, her time to set up an alibi was drawing to a close. With a curse and a hiss of frustration, she flew out of the school doors, heading for the backside near the bleachers. It would be easier to change back there and run inside than squeeze back into that smelly janitor's closet. The feeling of her board sailing through the air did lift her spirits. I should go for a flight around town this evening, before patrol and after work. I need to just relax. She thought as the bleachers came into sight, and she began thinking of powering down the suit. The hoverboard snapped away with a single thought, as she landed behind the icy stands. Finally, the rest of the suit peeled away, reluctant and slower than usual, as she fought the thought of racing back inside to come up with an excuse for her absence.

The cold greeted her like an enthusiastic cat, all sharp claws and eager nips. It wrapped around her limbs and snuggled beneath her clothes with a gust of wind. The chill left her shuddering and her bones aching, but she dawdled near the backdoor, not wanting to rush into the ineffective heat and frowzy stank that came with it. She took a deep breath of the autumn mid-morning air, the scent of decaying leaves and bright crisp cleanness settling into her mind, before pushing on the back door, giving up the urge to tarry. The handle depressed, the hinges squeaked, and the whole thing rattled in its frame, locked from the other side. Damn it. The walk to the front part of the school wasn't a long one, but it did delay her return even longer, and with the ghost's influence gone people would be venturing back to their classrooms. She jogged around the side of the school, taking in more of the brisk cold, the wind pulling at her curls with a gentle touch today instead of the fierce snatch the day before. She rounded back to the front of the school, only to find Mr. Lancer looking around the foyer with a frown on his face. "Oh, Mr. Lancer…"

"Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ms. Gray, have you been wandering around outside this whole time?"

"No sir. I heard noises coming from the front of the school, so I went to investigate."

"During a ghost attack? You're as much of a handful as Mr. Fenton." She stopped just on the other side of the door, wind pressing icy claws down her spine, school pumping damp misery on her front.

"Danny's…"

"Missing, yes, my guess is he knows we're going to cancel school and got a head start going home. I wish he wouldn't do that." That tracked. Danny's parents were ghost hunters, and he didn't seem especially frightened of them. Properly wary, sure, but huddling in the same bathroom stall in terror like half the football team? Nope. He probably left right after Technus' announcement and started walking home. "Go back to where you're supposed to be, young lady, so we can take roll call. Then we can release you kids until we figure out how to update the ghost shields again." The AP sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, before rubbing his temples.

She enjoyed the warm tingles of lingering adrenaline and victory that rushed through her as she walked back into school. Phantom had Technus handled, school would be out for the rest of the day, and she'd have time to fly home to eat a surprise lunch with her daddy before her shift at work.

True to her prediction, it only took twenty minutes to assess who was in class and who had safely absconded at the first sign of ghostly trouble. With the task complete, and the administration needing to make calls to the government and the Fentons to see about updating their anti-ghost tech again, they released the whole school early. Just thirty minutes after walking back into the school, she was flying away from it, spinning through the air, heading for home. She did a quick scan for Technus. The energy signal of a ghost that powerful would be unmistakable. Finding nothing, she poured on the speed. She'd get a whole afternoon with her dad to watch daytime soaps and eat food instead of being responsible. She hated to admit it, but the technology ghost had come in handy.

She landed her board on the fire escape, and opened her bedroom window, tossing her backpack onto her floor with a grunt. "Daddy?" She called out towards the front of the apartment.

"Sweet pea, what are you doing home?" Her father rushed to her bedroom door, face looking stressed.

"Oh, some ghost crashed school today, so they let us all out early. I flew home." She watched as his shoulders slid back into a lower position, jaw unlocking. "I did fight it a little bit, but then Phantom showed up and ran it off."

"That's nice of him."

"I'm not really sure he had a choice…"

"Right, your ghost...obsession theory." He moved away from her door, heading back towards the living room. "Lunch will be ready soon. I'm making jambalaya."

"With the spicy sausages, right?"

"Just the way you like it, baby girl," he chuckled from the small kitchen, the sound of chopping carrying through their house. She shut her window to keep in the heat and recalled the rest of her suit, enjoying the more diffuse warmth of her house.

Valerie slid off her shoes and walked out of her bedroom. It'd been a successful morning, all things considered. She'd get the info on that shrine from Kim or whoever else tomorrow.

A/N: Welcome to the bottom, dear reader! The schedule continues as planned as the next update should come Wednesday, December 20th!

Can't wait that long? Want tidbits and more Lore?

Feel free to follow my art/writing blog for Daily Excerpts and Lore posts in between chapters. You can always drop me a line as well if you have burning questions you need answered. ;)

Blog: balshumetsbaragouin . tumblr . com

I will see you next week!