Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
âś“ Live Streamingâś“ Interactive Chatâś“ Private Showsâś“ HD Qualityâś“ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Okay, so I know the phandom as a whole loves to joke about Tucker being a furry, and it's genuinely one of my favorite headcanons.
But I think a lot of us (including myself) forget that Mr. Lancer CANONICALLY HAS A BEAR SUIT.
(Although seeing as he doesn't like wearing it, it's entirely possible that it's actually Ms. Tetslaff's. And I think Furry Tetslaff is a hilarious concept and I would love to see that be a thing.)
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
âś“ Live Streamingâś“ Interactive Chatâś“ Private Showsâś“ HD Qualityâś“ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I love the hc that Danny can't help but trigger this innate, subconscious fight or flight response in everyone he meets. I love it even more when it's the reason why he still gets bullied by Dash.
Truth be told, Dash grew up years ago. His mean streak had been a short-lived phase that left a bad taste in his mouth. The sudden influx of hormones brought on by the onset of puberty had apparently muddled his brain and left him emotionally stunted for the duration of his freshman year. He'd shoved nerds into lockers and stolen their lunch money. He sorely wishes he hadn't been so excruciatingly cliche.
But he'd somehow managed to unstick his head from his ass pretty quick and he hasn't laid a finger on anyone since - well, except for Fenton.
Fenton had always been the exception. Small and slouched, with a messy fringe that fell into his eyes. Danny Fenton always made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end whenever he walked past.
His arm would brush too close or his shoulder would bump into his in a crowded hallway and Dash's arm would lash out before he could even comprehend the accidental touch. Fenton would be pinned against a locker with Dash's forearm against his neck in the blink of an eye.
The funny thing is though, no one stops him. The other kids don't call him out and the teachers are always coincidentally absent.
Dash isn't a bully - at least not anymore. He helped Lester get his locker door open after a ghost attack left the damn thing jammed shut. He stays late after practice so the girls on the cheer team don't have to walk home when the sun starts dipping low. He holds doors open for the people walking behind him and even offers a polite smile. The other day he stopped to help some little kid struggling to tie their shoelaces.
He's trying to be better. His mom cried about how proud she was on his birthday last month and principal Ishiyama made a passing comment on how nice it was not seeing him in her office every week. He enjoys being nice to people. It's gratifying, and some kids have started coming up to him when they need help.
Once upon a time, Dash had been a chubby self-conscious kid who'd hit the gym as soon as his dad had gotten sick of his begging. Puberty had hit him like a truck and he'd started shaving a year before anyone else. Since then he'd bulked up and was far larger than the average high schooler. He'd been honing his reflexes for years and never drops the ball. He's the shield that everyone hides behind during ghost fights. He's big and strong and has damn good aim - which is better than nothing when going up against a ghost.
But there's something wrong with Fenton.
Danny makes sweat gather beneath his collar and Dash has to grind his teeth any time he walks past.
At least he's not the only one.
Kwan's hands are always clenched into fists when they walk past Fenton's locker, even if he's not there. It feels wrong to have your back to Fenton in the changing rooms and Lancer's the only teacher still handing Danny a detention slip - Dash suspects it's cause none of the other staff can stand to be alone with him for that long.
No one steps in when someone lashes out at the Fenton kid. No one says a word or runs towards the teacher's lounge when Dale has Danny by the arm, eyes wide and gripped so tight his knuckles turn white.
The hallway goes silent and the world steps back as Dash's team flank his sides while the front of Danny's shirt is bunched in his fist. His heart thuds against his ribs and pounds in his ears as Danny opens his mouth to make a sarcastic quip. Danny's always been a sarcastic, mouthy little shit, but Dash can't find it in himself to laugh, not while his body forms a physical barrier between Fenton and everyone else - not when Dash has him by the throat but he's the one feeling cornered and exposed. He has to dig his toes into the soles of his sneakers to resist running.
It's not normal.
Dash plays along, keeping his cool as he goes through the familiar routine. He spits out a pathetic insult that misses its mark and thumps Danny against his locker before dropping him to the ground.
It feels rehearsed, like he's stuck in a cycle he can't seem to break. It's one big act that Dash walks away from with adrenaline churning the contents of his stomach and sweat gathering in the palms of his hands. The hallway parts as Dash walks away. He spares a glance at Kwan, whose dark eyes are trained on the floor in front of him, his fists clenching at his sides, shaking under the fluorescent lights. Dash hides his own hands in his pockets. The one he had bunched in Danny's shirt trembles, his nerves vibrating with the sensation of pins and needles. It feels like static under his skin. He tries wiping it off on the inside of his jacket.
The entire student body of Casper high follows behind him.
   Sam’s trying to convince Mr Lancer to talk to the School Board about adding Cryptozoology in the school course or atleast be added as a course option.
Chapter 18 [FFN | AO3] of The Trouble with Ghosts: Lancer hadn’t realized how closely young Mr. Fenton’s school troubles–and the secrets he surely wasn’t telling his parents–were tied to ghosts until after that encounter with Phantom.
(beginning | previous)
-|-
As it turned out, Miss Manson came to get them in the Spectre Speeder. Lancer wasn’t entirely sure she was exaggerating when she said she’d won the privilege by besting the others at rock-paper-scissors and had had to subsequently promise to always keep in contact with them before they let her go alone. Not because they thought she was in danger, apparently, at least not once Jack Fenton had been caught up, but because everyone else simply wanted to come along and see them.
Well.
See the others more so than him, no doubt, but Lancer didn’t mind. He was only a teacher, after all. That was hardly the same as a parent, child, spouse, sibling, or best friend.
Still, he wouldn’t say that he was disappointed to climb off of Miss Gray’s sled and into the much more solid, thankfully enclosed Spectre Speeder. Truly, he was grateful for more than just the news that the others had made it out before it was too late. Looking below him and seeing the same empty green as above him, as all around him, had given him a dizzying feeling akin to vertigo. He hadn’t minded in the least when the trip had lapsed into silence aside from Danny’s occasional course corrections, and he’d been rather thankful that Valerie had done so gently. He’d started to wonder if he might lose his lunch, for all that it seemed ridiculous after everything else.
He was uncomfortably aware that if a passing ghost had decided to confront them and they’d been forced to flee, it would have been a very near thing.
“Are you okay, Mr. Lancer?” Sam asked as he settled in beside Maddie. “You look kinda green, and I don’t mean from the light.”
“I’ll be fine, Miss Manson, thank you.”
She narrowed her eyes at him but pointed to what seemed to be a glove compartment. “There’s a bag in there if you need it.” Leaning forward, she called out to Danny, “Are you coming or staying with Valerie?”
“I’ll stay; we won’t be far behind you, but you’ll still be going faster than us, and I want to direct her.”
Sam nodded and pulled something out of her pocket. “Keep in touch in case something happens.” She showed him what she was holding—a green earring of some sort, like the one she was wearing—and then said, “Catch,” as she tossed it to him.
He snatched it easily and grinned as he slipped it onto his right ear. “Thanks.”
“You kids have been using the Fenton Phones?” Maddie asked, sounding surprised.
“They have great range,” Sam and Danny said together, which only earned them a snort from Maddie.
Lancer pulled the door closed at a wave from Danny and did up his seatbelt before leaning his head against the glass, the inherent coolness of it spreading to his temple and cheek. The Ghost Zone itself seemed to be an ambient temperature, though he’d seen enough ghosts with differing abilities to suspect that there were pockets within the Ghost Zone that would be quite different. Frozen wastelands or boiling isles, barren rock or dense jungles or seemingly endless deserts, realms shrouded in fog or hidden in darkness or riddled with crevasses that became abysses—
This all felt surreal. First, he was simply helping Phantom, as any good citizen might. Next, he found out one of his students was Phantom. Then, it turned out that another one of his students was one of the most skilled ghost hunters in town and in the employ of none other than Amity Park’s mayor, who was also a ghost and had no qualms about using his powers and knowledge of science to try to do the most atrocious things—
He would help.
Lancer wasn’t sure how, but there had to be something he could do to help.
He couldn’t singlehandedly fix all of this, as Danny had implied he was trying to do, but he could help. He could endeavour to change little things, to improve the situation in whatever way he could. To be a good person, to do what any good person would do, in order to make things better. Trying to improve things for both Mr. Fenton and Miss Gray at school would be the least of it. Detention had already proven ineffective for Danny, so the other teachers wouldn’t question his attempt to design a program to help him—and others in need, one way or another—so if he could just find something that would work, they needn’t worry about Lancer accidentally exposing their secrets in his attempt to help—
There was a touch on his arm. “I’ll make some coffee when we get back,” Maddie said. He hadn’t realized she’d broken off—finished?—her conversation with Sam. “Or would you rather tea?”
Lancer straightened up and managed to muster a small smile by the time he turned to face her. “Tea would be more calming for me, I think.”
“You get used to it,” said Sam without glancing over at him. “It might seem like a lot at first, but you adapt pretty fast.”
They might adapt quickly, but he felt like everything was changing around him and he was simply being dragged along behind it.
“We’re almost back,” she added, tapping the electronic display on the dashboard. “I know you’re gonna wanna jump in and work on an antidote, Mrs. F, but you guys should know that Vlad’s already issued a response over what happened. Details are still scant, but he’s using the explosion at the mansion as an excuse to step down as mayor and withdraw from the public eye, so we’re going to have to figure out how to keep an eye on him.”
“One thing at a time,” Maddie said. “Helping Danny is our first priority. Vlad won’t act right away. He always did like to have a plan in place first.”
“Yeah, but we can’t underestimate him. Even if he’s not already modifying an existing plan, he’ll probably figure out how to spy on us before we figure out how to spy on him. It won’t take him long to adapt the tech he’s already designed for all of that to bypass your kneejerk defenses.”
It was a very good thing Lancer did not already have that tea or he’d have been hard-pressed not to spit it out. “I beg your pardon?”
Sam’s shoulders rolled in a shrug. “Long story short, Vlad’s a creep.”
“Yes, that’s rather undeniable, isn’t it?” Maddie commented, her tone darkened by anger and bitterness. “I can’t believe we never saw it.”
“You never looked.”
Maddie flinched but didn’t argue, and they lapsed back into silence until Sam pointed ahead at an octagon of metal and said they were approaching the portal.
Lancer wasn’t feeling any better about the entire situation once they arrived, slipping through the divide in dimensions more easily than a needle through cloth. After they had all disembarked, he took one of the seats the others had arranged in the lab while Maddie was wrapped in a hug by Jazz and Jack and Tucker moved to talk with Sam. Lancer didn’t hear the others ask about Danny, but then he noticed that Tucker, Jazz, and Jack were all wearing those Fenton Phones, and he suspected they knew precisely what had happened.
He turned his eyes back to the portal, waiting for Valerie and Danny to fly through.
“They decided to make a detour,” a voice beside him said a few minutes later, and Lancer jumped before looking over at Jazz. Her smile was weak. “They saw Technus and went to talk to him about Valerie’s suit. We’ll get started without them.” She offered him a cup of tea, and he took it with a quiet thank you.
Lancer might not know what would be decided today, but he did know that he intended to listen.
He couldn’t help if he didn’t first listen.
-|-
Valerie hadn’t been against chasing after Technus right now, Danny knew, but he could see that she was uneasy. Tension stiffened her stance even though her shoulders were squared, putting on a brave face to do something she never wanted to do, which was ask something of a ghost.
More specifically, she didn’t like making bargains with ghosts. She did it, but only when her back was up against a wall—which it was now, whether she liked it or not.
“Look,” Danny said again from where he stood at the tip of Valerie’s board, between her and the floating technology ghost, “if you agree to run diagnostics on Val’s suit and make sure it’s working properly and that Vlad didn’t and can’t mess with anything, no remote or delayed activation or whatever, then I’ll personally take you on a raid for some electronics in the human realm.”
Valerie pursed her lips but didn’t argue, which was good, because telling Technus that Danny intended to take him to the dump to scavenge for stuff that hadn’t been recycled would not go over particularly well right now.
Technus smirked. “You’ll help me take over your world?”
At least he wasn’t trying to figure out if there was a trick behind Danny’s team-up with Valerie. “That’s not what I said, and I’ll still stop you if you try. This is a personal escort to get some new stuff, that’s it.”
“You mean you’d babysit me.”
“To make sure you didn’t try anything right then? Yeah. But this works in your favour, because if you agree, then you’re guaranteed some more stuff to use next time. You won’t have to beg Skulker for scraps.”
“I don’t—!”
“You do, and you know it. You both do it. He’s the same. As soon as one of you gets something new, the other guy is right there to see what can be salvaged.”
“Danny,” Valerie hissed, the warning clear in her tone.
Technus crossed his arms. “What if I don’t agree?”
“Good luck getting something new to use. Good luck even getting to the human realm in general unless you can bargain with someone else. Vlad’s portal’s out of commission, and my parents aren’t going to be so lax about keeping ours locked now, either. Really, I’m your only hope if you wanna get one up on Skulker. But if you wanna walk….” Danny shrugged. “Suit yourself. C’mon, Val.”
“I didn’t say I don’t agree!” Technus screeched, flying around to cut them off. He cleared his throat. “But for what you want me to do, she could ask nicely.”
Valerie shot Danny a withering look. “Please,” she said to Technus, making it much less sarcastic than Danny had thought she would. She almost sounded serious.
“Pretty please.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Pretty please.”
“Pretty please with a cherry—”
“We’re done here,” interrupted Valerie. She looked at Danny. “He obviously doesn’t want to do this. Let’s go.”
Danny had to fight to keep a smile off his face. He hadn’t realized Valerie had fought Technus enough to know exactly how to play him. “I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t want to do it; I think he’s afraid he can’t. But that’s fine. I know someone else who’ll help us out, anyway.” That was a lie; he didn’t. Even with Tucker’s help, he wasn’t sure they’d be able to do this on their own.
Valerie might know that.
Technus shouldn’t.
“I can too help you!” Technus shouted. He flew over to the nearest purple rock, one large enough to hold all of them. “Come here. I will prove it to you!”
Danny couldn’t stop the smile this time, and Valerie smirked right back at him before putting an arm out to steady him as she flew after Technus. Technus had Valerie call out her full suit before reaching out to touch it and disappearing inside. Danny could read the discomfort on her face even through her tinted visor, and he couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was thinking back to the last time she’d seen her suit possessed.
Technus couldn’t have been gone long, but the seconds seemed to crawl. When he rematerialized, Valerie had her visor up in a flash. “Well?”
“Everything’s functioning the way it should.”
Danny narrowed his eyes. “Any tracking devices? GPS or something on the suit?”
“Five.”
“What?” Valerie looked furious.
“Plus three in the board.”
“So disable them! Now!”
“Do you agree that I’m the best—”
“Yes! Whatever! Just get rid of them!”
“—and that I deserve even more for doing that for you?”
“Argh!” Valerie threw up her hands. “Eight tracking devices? Isn’t that overkill?”
“Considering I always tried to avoid hitting you directly in a fight? If it were anyone but Vlad, I’d say yes, but it’s Vlad, so that’s par for the course. That’s why we’re doing this.” Danny turned to Technus. “Disable all of them, permanently, and we’ll go on more than one trip to get you some—” he tried not to grimace “—hip new electronics.”
“Five.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Three, if you disable every tracker made for tracking her for good, remove the block on Plasmius’s ecto-signature on every piece of tech, and fix it up so that the suit is permanently and forever under Valerie’s control unless she decides to have it removed—safely—by you or someone with your skillset. We don’t need Vlad hacking it.”
Technus arched an eyebrow. “I’ll do the first two things,” he said, “but the suit is already more under her control than it is mine.”
“Which would change if you decided to control it on a whim, so make it so no one can do that.” Technus readily agreeing to the first two meant Tucker would be able to pull off a clean copy of Vlad’s ecto-signature from Valerie’s equipment after all, but if Vlad could still hack her suit, she wouldn’t be able to use it in a fight against him.
It might not even be safe for her to get near enough for him to see her, if Vlad could figure out a way to activate Valerie’s suit on his command and control it while she was trapped inside.
“It would never work at all if I did.” Technus glanced at Valerie. “Are you ready to throw in the towel on hunting us down, little hunter?”
“I—” Valerie now looked lost, eyes wide as she stared between Danny and Technus. “But I’m good at this, and Vlad’s still out there. I can’t just give it up now.”
“I’ve never seen Vlad overshadow technology,” Danny said. Technus only shrugged, so Danny hoped that was true. He wasn’t convinced Technus would volunteer information, however helpful, without getting something in return. He didn’t start ranting about how he was better than Plasmius, though, so that was the best indication Danny was going to get that he was right. “You’ll just have to consider it a job hazard for now, and we can re-evaluate later. Mom and Dad might be able to build you a suitable replacement. I mean, the Fenton Peeler is already kinda a portable suit.”
“Their technology will not be greater than mine!”
Valerie pulled a face. “You’re right. It wouldn’t be. I’m not going to give this up right away. I can’t.”
“Then three trips to the human realm so that I can gather everything I need to overtake it!” Technus clapped his hands together. “In exchange for fulfilling your first two conditions.” Electricity began to arc between his hands, and Danny really hoped they wouldn’t regret this.
Valerie shifted uneasily and then flinched back as Technus thrust both palms out towards her. The electricity shot into her suit and her sled at eight different points, and there was a series of tiny pops. Technus touched her shoulder again. Danny thought he might just delve back into the suit, but instead he just closed his eyes and her suit crackled slightly with green ecto-energy. Perhaps ten seconds later, Technus looked at them and said, “It’s done. When’s our first trip?”
“We’ll schedule it after I get it confirmed that you did what you said you did,” Danny said. “I keep my word. Gimme a couple days and I’ll follow up with you. I promise.”
Technus sniffed. “Very well, but if you break your oath—”
“Yeah, yeah, you know where I live. It’s not the truce, but just trust me, okay?”
“And….” Valerie swallowed. “Thank you. But don’t think I won’t hunt you down if you do go rogue and try to take over the world.”
Technus laughed. “Once I have some hip new electronics? You won’t be able to stop me.”
-|-
Sam and Tucker did most of the talking, though Jazz interjected with her own explanations to some of her parents’ questions. Lancer stayed quiet and sipped his tea. Most of its heat had dissipated, leaving it pleasantly lukewarm in his hands.
Holding the cup gave him something to do.
“I’m going to try to keep tabs on Vlad,” Tucker was saying without looking up from his PDA, “but he’s not stupid. He knows how good I am, so he’s not going to make it easy for me. Especially if he got that mid-morph sample he’s wanted since forever. He’ll immediately make five billion copies of it just in case, so even if I corrupt every copy I find, it won’t be enough.”
“I’m going to keep an ear to the ground, too,” added Sam, “but chances are good that’ll be a dead end. I never heard about him until Danny mentioned him.”
“Vladdy always was a bit of a recluse since the accident,” Jack murmured. “Should’ve known something had changed when he started answering our calls again, but I thought it was because we caught up at the reunion.”
“We both did,” Maddie said as she reached over to squeeze Jack’s hand. He shot her a grateful look and shifted his hand so that he could clasp hers.
“So we’re agreed?” Jazz interjected. “Mom’ll work on an antidote, Dad’ll work on a tracking device, Tucker will work on tracking Vlad before and after we’ve got a working prototype, and Sam’ll be with me on filling you in on stuff so Danny doesn’t have to?”
“I’ll come up with plans for missed schoolwork,” Lancer said quietly. “This does rather qualify as extenuating personal circumstances, I think.”
Jazz smiled. “Figured you’d come up with something.”
“More importantly,” Sam said, looking between Jack and Maddie, “between me and Jazz, we can let you know what actually works on your existing inventions before you draft a new one. Everything should react the same way to Vlad as it does to Danny, so that won’t be an issue, and it frees up Danny to deal with other stuff.”
Lancer suspected Sam did not mean Danny’s schoolwork when she referred to other stuff, but he couldn’t really blame her. The adjustment Danny must have been forced to make upon becoming Phantom, and the readjustment now that four new people knew the truth…. It was not something he could adapt to overnight. His parents and Valerie might be on his side now, but that knowledge wouldn’t simply erase habits that had been ingrained over months. It would be foolish to expect that.
A learning curve of such magnitude would not be without a few bumps and plateaus along the way. He suspected there would be many course corrections and apologies in the coming days and weeks, even with a concerted effort from all involved.
“What are you trying to hack into now?” Jack asked, looking over at Tucker.
“Traffic cams,” he replied without missing a beat. “And I’m in, just skipping through. Vlad might’ve had a duplicate at city hall, but he can’t just disappear from there every day, and especially not today when people would want to mob him with questions after what happened at his home.”
“I can’t believe he’s calling it a bomb,” Sam muttered.
“I can. Gas leak isn’t a good enough excuse to step out of the public eye. It would only be a play for sympathy. And the damage is localized to his property—”
“Yeah, those yards aren’t small,” Jazz said.
“—which makes it even more likely that he planned this after the stuff Danny’s pulled at his Wisconsin property.”
“You don’t think someone like Val’s dad wouldn’t be suspicious that he never reported his supposed death threats?” Sam asked.
Tucker shook his head. “Vlad can set it up and make it good enough to pass inspection. He could probably do that even without Technus. He wouldn’t have built up an empire solely by overshadowing other CEOs, especially when boards are involved in the decision-making process. This is stuff he’s going to be good at.” Tucker looked up. “It might be worth seeing if you can start dropping hints at your next dinner party that someone should actually look into Vlad’s dealings. If we can convince someone to start investigating his business, it’ll be at least a minor distraction for him.”
“Got one next weekend. Mom’ll be too thrilled that I’m not coming up with excuses not to go anymore to wonder about the change. Grandma Ida might ask, though.”
“Yeah, but your grandma would just help you if you told her what you were trying to do.”
Sam grinned. “That’s the plan.”
“Jack and I were also going to file a case against Vlad,” Maddie said.
Sam frowned. “What kind of case? On what grounds? No offense, but Vlad’s been pretty careful about the face he presents to the public. It’s not going to be easy to nail him even if I do get rumours going.”
“Intellectual property theft. I saw enough in his lab even without looking at Valerie’s weapons to know he’s been ripping off our designs—ones we developed after our college days.”
“I might be able to help with that,” Lancer said. He withdrew the wad of papers he’d wedged between his undershirt and dress shirt and offered it to them. “I’m not sure what it all is, but something may be of use, especially coupled with Miss Gray’s testimony if she chooses to give it.”
Jack took them and started flipping through them, letting out a low whistle. “Some of these could be exact copies of our blueprints.”
“Well, it’s not like it would be hard for him to sneak in and steal them when you’re not home. You literally keep them right over there.” Sam jerked her thumb over her shoulder, and Lancer noticed the filing cabinet—safe?—in question, next to what he’d since learned was the weapons vault. “Making it phase-proof wasn’t going to stop him.”
“People know the GAV on sight,” added Jazz, “and Vlad would have a good case for monitoring ghost attacks and, from there, associated traffic reports. He’d know when the house was empty, and the ecto-alarm isn’t armed automatically anymore.”
“Danny had me disable it like the second time he forgot and phased through the wall to lasers,” Tucker added. “Which is why it never stopped the ghosts who came through via the portal, either. It was never on.”
“We reset it whenever we noticed it was off,” Maddie said. “We have it genetically locked, like the portal.”
“Tucker taught me what to do in case he was ever busy,” Jazz said, “and he and Sam are both recognized as family. Danny asked after you installed the genetic lock, remember?”
Jack and Maddie exchanged glances.
“He, um, didn’t actually ask,” Tucker admitted. “I hacked it. He just told you he asked.”
“Of course he did,” Jazz muttered. “It’s not like I don’t know how good you are.”
Lancer had not known how good Tucker was, despite him saying he had hacked into the city’s systems already; that was becoming increasingly clear. Perhaps, if Tucker ever needed extra credit in his class, he could use some of his computer science skills. Lancer was sure he could come up with something suitable.
“You also didn’t know that Danny was Phantom,” Sam interrupted. “Or, if you did, that was before he knew you did. The only reason he told you anything was in case you walked in on us emptying a thermos or something.”
There was so much more here than could ever be discussed in one setting. Even if Jazz hadn’t known from the start, she’d clearly known for months, and there were still things the others had never remembered—or needed—to tell her. Even with the urgency that was driving them to find Vlad, how much would similarly be forgotten or overlooked simply because it wasn’t necessary knowledge at the time?
How many years would it be before the Fentons truly knew their son again?
Lancer himself didn’t expect to learn much more than he had these last couple of days; if anything came up that he needed to know, he’d be told. As much as he wanted to help, he’d never be in the thick of things.
“But—just going back to the whole thing about trying to go after Vlad yourselves for a minute here—even if you have a case, even if you have proof, it won’t necessarily help you.” Sam glanced down at the papers before looking back up at Jack and Maddie. “He’ll make his own proof, backdating fakes or whatever, or just discredit you. I mean, you’re not the most respected scientists, even if you’re paranormal experts. He might even use your history against you if he tries to claim you stole from him.”
“Sam’s right,” Tucker added. “He could make it look that way. I don’t know if you guys keep a good enough paper trail to prove that you really were first. Besides, if you make too much of a fuss right now, Vlad will be the one going through all this footage and proving that we were at his place moments before the explosion. I’m deleting what I can, but I’m not sure how long it takes before Technus can’t get it to come back. We don’t know enough about his powers. And, trust me, Mr. F., if Vlad thinks he can get the police to believe you’d plant a bomb at his place, he’ll do it in a heartbeat.”
Jazz groaned. “Maybe shelve the idea of you two trying to go after him personally till we see if we get any traction with Sam’s rumours. The last thing I want is for Vlad to have an excuse to throw you guys in jail and try to get custody of us. We’d run away, and I’ll be turning eighteen soon anyway, but that’s not the point.”
“Even if something did happen to us, you’d be staying with my sister before Vlad would have a hope of putting in a claim,” Maddie said.
“Not if he buys off the right people,” Jack growled, “and Vladdy always had a knack for getting his way, even in college. Jazzypants has a point. We shouldn’t risk it yet. I don’t want to lose all of you.”
Lancer opened his mouth to say that legal battles of any sort should not be their first consideration when they still needed more information, but Danny and Valerie flew out of the portal and everyone else was out of their chairs and surrounding them before he could get a word out.
“We’re fine,” Danny insisted from where he was being smothered in a family hug. “Technus gave Val’s suit a clean bill of health and fried all the trackers Vlad had in it. All eight of them, to give you an idea of what we’re dealing with. All she needs to figure out in the future is if she wants to keep working with the suit Technus made or work with you guys to build her own at some point.”
“I will double check everything as soon as I’m done deleting incriminating evidence,” Tucker promised.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, but, um.” Valerie cleared her throat and looked at Jack and Maddie. “After we publicly call a truce with Phantom, if you guys wouldn’t mind taking me on as an apprentice of sorts, I’d really—”
“Of course we’ll teach you more about ghost hunting!” Jack boomed, turning to pull the surprised Valerie into a hug. “We’re happy to teach all of Danny’s friends!”
Jazz, who’d taken the opportunity to extricate herself from the hug when Jack had released them all and left Maddie clinging to her son, glanced at Lancer and added, “They’d teach my friends, too, but I never invite any of my friends over anymore. This is one reason why.”
Lancer did not think it wise to admit that he wasn’t sure who Jazz’s friends were, as he saw her more often alone than in the company of others. Spike, perhaps? Friendships could take root in the strangest of places.
“I’ve got good news, too,” Danny added as Maddie moved away to accept a jar from Valerie that Lancer was fairly certain shouldn’t have fit in her pocket at all. No one else seemed to find it strange, but he supposed such was the life of the Fentons and those who kept their company. “Even if it takes you a while to figure out what chemicals Vlad used on me, it’s finally wearing off. At least, being in the Ghost Zone kickstarted my healing, so the rest shouldn’t be far behind. I didn’t realize it right away, but nothing hurts anymore.”
“I still wanna know what’s in it so we can make more and use it on him,” Valerie said with a glance over at the jar. “We’ll need some way to slow him down, and using his own tech against him would be great.”
Danny smirked. “Oh, it is. I’ve done that before.”
“Try to do something simple, sweetie,” Maddie said. “See if there’s any progress. If we know if your abilities are coming back one by one or all at once, it’ll give us a better idea of how it’s affecting you and how your body is metabolizing it. Jack and I have theorized that ghosts must return to their own realm to recharge, as it were, so perhaps being exposed to a higher concentration of ecto-energy—”
Danny didn’t wait for his mother to finish. Instead, he met Lancer’s eyes and lifted a hand. A second later, it disappeared, and Danny grinned. “Oh, there’s definitely progress,” he said as he lifted both feet off the ground and then stuck his arm through his sister’s head, to her immediate protests and the accompanying snickers of his friends.
The path ahead would be rough for all of them—even him, with the weight of this knowledge. Still, Danny was proving now that his childhood hadn’t been completely wiped away under the burden of his (somewhat self-appointed, Lancer would argue) responsibilities, and despite the hardships all the children had already faced and the hardships that were yet to come—
Despite it all, Lancer had hope that it would all work out in the end. He had never truly expected things to be easy, but he had thought they’d be achievable, and now…. Now, with all the support Danny and his friends would have, Lancer thought that would happen. The occasional misunderstanding or spat wouldn’t break apart the united front they’d form. Even Vlad, for all his power in both realms, would have trouble dividing and besting them again.
However long it took, regardless of whatever was required of him, Lancer was determined to help.
