DP Season 4 Episode 9

Burn the Map: Time and Relative Dimension in Space

Chapter 1

Wednesday, August 30

"Man, it's been too long since we did this," Tucker said as he slowed the Spector Speeder to land.

"This is normal for us," Sam retorted, checking her bag to pull out the small leash she had for the small creature.

"When was the last time you saw Eldeah?" Danny asked, waiting for his friend to finish parking their vehicle.

"I don't know, before you went to Ohio," Tucker admitted with a shiver. He leaned forward to look around Danny at Sam and added, "Just don't let that thing sting me."

"Tucker, bees don't sting just to sting you," Sam defended. She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest as she said, "If you get stung by any bee, you'll have deserved it. Anyway, this will get her in a better home."

"She looked like she was going to that last time," Tucker said, hunching his shoulders as they lowered to the ground at the start of the nature reserve they had claimed in the Ghost Zone. "Half cat, too."

Danny noticed the enraged look on Sam's face, getting a smile out of him at his friends' opposite sides. He placed his hand on Sam's knee and was about to say something to hopefully defuse the fight when motion above them caught his attention. Looking up through the domed windshield he quickly recognized Kale Canoe flying above them. "Hang on, guys," Danny said, letting the lights change him to Phantom as he gave Sam's knee a reassuring squeeze. "Kale at twelve o'clock."

Tucker stopped the Spector Speeder as the two looked up, saying, "Haven't seen him in a while."

"Danny, he's got the Infi-Map!" Sam exclaimed, leaning forward.

Danny squinted, just making out the scroll in the green haired ghost's grasp. "Come on, man," Danny mumbled to the ghost that couldn't hear him. He flew up, phasing through his seatbelt and the windshield, before calling out, "Kale!"

The ghost looked down at hearing his name only to jump mid-flight. He turned his head and flew faster in the direction he had been heading in.

Danny grasped his hands tight at his sides and forced himself up after the ghost. His feet turned into a ghostly tail as he poured on speed, hoping he could stop Kale from taking advantage of the map. A smile formed on his face as he realized he was catching up quickly. He turned so he flew facing what counted as the Ghost Zone's sky as he started to match Kale's speed. Flying closer to the ghost from the beginning of the twentieth century, Danny got himself face to chin with the older teen. Danny let out a silent laugh as he looked up at the ghost flying with his face looking where they were going, determination on the ghost's pale face. Danny reached up and took hold of the Infi-Map, quickly pulling it from Kale's hand.

"Hey!" Kale exclaimed, looking down in surprise.

Danny smiled at the green haired ghost, separating his tail into his two feet to let himself slow down to be left behind.

Kale kept his eyes on Danny, looking under his arm as he continued to fly a moment, before coming to his senses and turning around. "That's mine!" Kale exclaimed.

"Not, it belongs to the Far Frozen," Danny retorted, opening the map. He opened his mouth, about to tell the map to take them back, when a green ectoblast shot through the paper. His eyes opened wide in shock as he looked up at the ghost to see Kale's right hand glowing green. The ghost himself had froze, staring in surprise and horror at his hand stretched out reaching for the map.

"Great timing for developing your powers," Tucker retorted as he pulled the Spector Speeder closer to Danny.

"I didn't mean-" Kale started, slowly floating closer. He looked at his hand a moment before closing it into a fist and holding it in his left hand. Looking back at Danny, he said, "I heard it could take you anywhere you wanted. I just wanna get home."

The map let out a bell sound, the bell warped to Danny's ear. He looked down at the still opened map in his hands as it started glowing green. The green reached the outer most rungs of the scroll, where his hands held it open, and sent a shock of heat through his gloves. "Youch!" Danny exclaimed, letting go of the map.

The map engulfed itself in an ectoflame, the tongues swirling like a portal. In the blink of an eye the portal engulfed Danny, Kale, and the Spector Speeder, taking them instantaneously from the Ghost Zone to a forest on Earth.

Danny looked down, seeing his feet floating inches from untamed grass, and saw the rolled-up form of the Infi-Map. He dropped to his feet before kneeling to pick up the scroll. Standing straight, he carefully pulled it open only to see the hole Kale had shot through the paper.

"Maybe it still works?" Tucker asked.

Danny looked over his shoulder to see his friends leaning closer to the glass to look at the map over him. He shrugged his shoulders and looked back at the map, saying, "Take us home."

The map glowed once again but refused to make a sound. The green glow faded away as paper fibers created itself in the paper's wound.

"I think it's trying to heal itself," Sam pointed out.

"At least that," Danny mumbled.

"So how long?" Kale asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he turned to look out at the forest they found themselves in.

"Who knows," Sam said. "And who knows where we even ended up, thanks to you."

"I don't need to listen to you," Kale retorted, looking over his shoulder at the three as he dropped his arms. "No mater where we are, I've still gotta job to do."

Danny let out a sigh as he watched the ghost float upwards above the tree line and fly out of view.

"Why does he keep turning up?" Tucker asked.

"I don't know," Danny admitted, rolling up the scroll. "Tucker, can you track him? I left a Fenton Tracker in him."

"Got'cha," Tucker said, pulling out his PDA as he sat back in the driver's seat.

"When did you do that?" Sam asked, unbuckling herself.

Danny let the lights change him back to Fenton as he watched her step around the seats and out the side door. "Back when we went back to 2004. You wanna come with me?"

"What, you already know where we are?" Sam asked as she dropped to her feet on the overgrown grass and looked around.

"No, but look," Danny offered, pointing over the Spector Speeder with his free hand where the top spirals of an old house could be seen through the trees. "Hopefully it's on an old street and we'll find a town."

"Nice thinking," Sam said with a smile as she turned back to Danny. She took his hand and, without looking at the boy in the vehicle, said, "Tuck, stay with the Speeder. We'll be right back."

"Not the best time for a make-out fest, you think?" Tucker asked.

Danny quickly looked up at his best friend, feeling his face burn hot, only to take in Tucker's smiling face as he held a stylus in one hand and his PDA in the other.

"Don't make me pull out the picture of you and Danny sleeping together," Sam threatened.

"We need to destroy that," Tucker hissed, his smile failing him as he looked at Danny.

Danny nodded his head, secretly knowing he could never hurt Sam's album. He turned back to Sam and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Come on," Danny offered, sliding the scroll into his back pocket as he pulled her along to walk through the woods.

The two walked in silence for a stretch, letting the sounds of nature fill their ears as Danny listened for anything out of the ordinary. Bugs and bird song filled the trees, reminding them it was still summer under the shade.

"Danny, look," Sam said, pointing farther ahead as the sounds of a small brook could be heard.

Danny looked at what she had pointed to, seeing what looked like a well-used walking path. "Wonder if we're on the house's property," Danny mumbled in a low voice.

"We're lost," Sam said with a shrug as they stepped over some undergrowth to step onto the flattened grass and worn away dirt path. "Happens all the time."

Danny followed her, keeping a nagging suspicion quiet in the back of his mind. He didn't know what he was feeling, but he was sure there was a lack of something in the air.

Realizing what Kale had said to create the portal out of the damaged map, Danny asked, "Sam, what if the map worked?"

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, pushing up a branch that was growing into the path.

"Right after he shot the map, he wanted it to take him home," Danny pointed out. "What if the map took him home?"

"If this is 2026, then we'll just find Fenton Works and use the portal to get back to the Ghost Zone," Sam threw off.

"I don't think we're in the future," Danny mumbled as they broke out of the forest path. The walking path led up to the back side of the three story Victorian styled house. Danny noticed a person walking out of the back door, turning himself and Sam invisible at the sight of the stranger. A girl about their age dressed in clothes he had only seen on TV or in museums stepped out. Her brown hair was up in a type of bun, long sleeves covered her arms, and her blue dress went to just above the ground, hiding her shoes. She flicked out a parasol in a similar light blue color as a man maybe just turning twenty dressed in a suit with a white fedora on his head stepped out to stand beside her. The lady stopped, resting the parasol open on her shoulder, and looked inside as she called out for someone.

To add to Danny's surprise, a girl younger than Dani stepped to the doorway dressed in what he could only think to call a maid's outfit. The girl wore a long black dress and a white apron over top of it, wiping her hands on the apron to leave smudges of something dark on the white fabric. The lady pointed towards a gazebo father in the yard, getting Danny to notice an older man, dressed in something similar to what the lady's companion wore, had fallen asleep in a metal chair under the shade of the gazebo. A glass of half drunk lemonade sat next to a newspaper on the table.

"Come on," Danny whispered, glad Sam knew him well enough to trust him. He pulled her along, cutting through the yard to the gazebo as the young maid gave the couple a curtsy and headed the same way.

Danny turned them intangible, hoping Sam would be fine, as he started flying. He grabbed hold of the old man's newspaper, quickly giving it his properties, and ducked out the back of the gazebo towards the edge of the woods.

Once they were far enough from the house, he dropped them back to their feet and released Sam's hand.

"We've gotta come up with some sort of signal," Sam said, stepping back to rest against a tree.

"Sorry," Danny tried, repositioning the newspaper to find the top. Flipping past an ad for a fifty thousand dollar giveaway for coffee that took up a good half of the page he found the front page to see the news paper's name; the Ambler Gazette. Finding the date just below that, Danny's eyes grew wide. "September 29th, 1904," he mumbled.

"What was that?" Sam asked, pushing herself away from the tree to stand on her own.

"The map tried to send us back to Kale's real home time," Danny realized, handing the newspaper to the girl.

Sam took the paper, it folding in half where the old man must have creased it. She flicked the top back up and read the header only to say, "You've gotta be kidding me." She looked back at Danny and asked, "Couldn't it've sent us to any other year?"

"I wish it would've sent us just home," Danny said, pulling the map from his back pocket. He unrolled it, hoping to see it might have repaired itself in the time it took them to check the house out only to see it was in the same state it had been the last time he had looked at it.

Sam folded the newspaper up and started walking through the undergrowth back towards the Speeder. "Come on, let's go get Tucker," Sam said without looking back.

Danny gave her a glance, hoping she had a plan, as he rolled back up the map. Shoving it back in his pocket, he hurried after her.