#moth!danny

A low whistle breaks the atmosphere sharply enough that not even the very real wind rattling the equally real windows can bring it back. Tucker shoots a glare Danny’s way, slowly lowering his hands from where they’d been wiggling dramatically in the air. All it gets him is a sheepish grin and an apologetic shrug. He pushes his glasses up his nose with a huff, ignoring Sam’s snickering, and turns his glare back to the screen in front of him.

“Anyway. Roll for perception.”

The rattle of dice was followed by a couple of groans and a soft yes! from Jazz.

"Okay, what did you guys get?" Tucker asked, peering at the dice on the table. "Oh."

"I think we can safely say I don't know what's happening," Danny said at his expression.

"Yeeah. Sam?"

"Twelve."

"Jazz?"

Jazz bounced a little in her seat. "Twenty one!" She knew playing a ranger was a good choice.

"Okay, okay.” Tucker took a deep breath and looked back at his laptop. “As the thunder rolls like great wheels in the sky, the wind whips at you. It flattens the grass around you in vicious ripples and grabs at your clothes. The ruins stay motionless around you, unmoved by the building storm.

“And yet, beneath the keening of the wind in your ears, you hear something else. It’s rhythmic, sharp. Repetitive. And it sounds like–

“Snap. Snap. Snap.”

Tucker smiled.

“Sam,” he said. “You see that it’s coming from a ragged banner, fluttering in the wind.”

Sam frowned in thought.

“You,” Tucker pointed at Jazz, “see a little head poking around one of the fallen pillars. It's got a beard, and its hair looks kind of weird."

"What do I see?" asked Danny.

"You're staring at the sun, I think." said Sam.

"You’re not the DM,” said Danny. “Tucker?”

“The sun is no longer visible,” said Tucker. Before Danny could gloat, he added, ”You’re staring at where it was.”

While Danny pouted in betrayal, Jazz was mentally rifling through the manuals she’d read as research before playing. Something small and bearded, and it had weird hair. Or something was wrong with the hair. Or something was in the hair?

But there weren’t that many short bearded races eccentric enough to do any of that.

She hazarded a guess. “Is it a gnome?” 

Tucker raised an eyebrow. “Roll for knowledge nature.”

That was a yes! And Danny had said she didn’t need to read everything to be prepared.

It was not a gnome.

It was something smaller and weirder called a grig, and as Tucker described it escorting them from the (apparently cursed) ruins, Jazz looked out the window.

The rain was still pouring down outside, dense enough to make white cloud the farther houses on their street and gather in mist along the ground. Water streamed down the glass in rivulets, leaving the image of the street distorted.

The reflection of their room in the window was warm by comparison, all yellows and creams and scattered paper.

And a little bit of green.

Jazz smiled back at her brother in the windows’ reflection, not letting on that she'd seen the subtle iridescence of his eyes. He'd tell her when he was ready, and until then she'd just be supportive. And patient, even if she could feel a horde of questions burning in the back of her mind.

“The grig sits on a log and pulls a doll-sized fiddle from his pack,” said Tucker, and Jazz returned her attention to the game.

“He puts it to his chin,” and Tucker mimed holding a fiddle to his chin –

“I thought that was violins,” said Danny.

“Danny, I am going to commit some violins,” said Tucker.

“Never mind.”

“He puts it to his chin,” repeated Tucker, “And begins to play. And it’s beautiful.”

He consulted his laptop and fiddled with some keys. With a decisive tap on the spacebar, music began to play. Tucker spoke over it. 

“The music fills the air like raindrops on leaves. Slowly, it grows to a musical crescendo and you find your spirits bolstered, your burdens lessened. It’s as though there’s air beneath your feet and you could –almost– begin to dance. But he stops after just a few more chords and chuckles under his breath.

“‘Nah,’ the grig says. ‘I won’t do that to ya.’”

“Do what?” asked Jazz before she could help herself.

“Ya don’t know, miss?” Tucker said, still in the grig’s voice.

Oh right. This was supposed to be in character. And Jazz was playing a ranger. “Maybe?”  She reached for her dice, rolling them between her fingers.  They were, she had quickly discovered, surprisingly fun to fidget with.  

“Knowledge nature,” Tucker suggested in a stage whisper.

Jazz straightened in her seat and rolled the d20, watching as it settled. “Eighteen?”

“They’re good enough musicians to weave spells with their music like bards, and can trap people in dances for hours. They do it as a prank, sometimes.”

Jazz remembered the siren from a few months back and winced.

“Thank you for not doing that,” she said.

“It just didn’t seem like it’d be funny enough,” said Tucker, back in character.

“Wow, reassuring,” said Sam.

Tucker smiled.

“And that’s less reassuring,” Danny commented. “I roll diplomacy for him to not do that. Twenty five.”

“What do you say?” asked Tucker.

Danny thought before responding.

“That was some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. You’re very talented. Where did you learn to play like that?”

“You’re right it’s a talent! Everyone in the clan’s got music in their bodies, right down to their feet,” Tucker said. And then he switched back out of the grig’s twang. “He puts his legs together and rubs, and they fill the air with a deep hum. His wings tremble from the effort and the sound.”

“That’s not a trick I’d ever manage,” said Danny. He sounded impressed.

“Not you! And not those lepre-cons,” said Tucker in the grig’s voice, snarling on the last word.

“Leprechauns?” asked Danny.

The start of whatever Tucker was going to say was cut off with a crash as the basement door was kicked open with a heavy thunk immediately followed by Jack Fenton’s booming voice. “Did somebody say leprechauns?!” He charged into the room, swinging some kind of… something vaguely resembling a gun, forcing Sam to duck and earning a yelp from Danny as he dove under the table.

Tucker was quick to pipe up, slapping a hand down over the monster manual in front of him. “Nope! No leprechauns! No, uh, sir. Not here!” 

Maddie’s voice trailed into the room more slowly than her husband’s, followed by the woman herself. “Now, dear, you know the Fenton Fae Fryer isn’t ready to use yet!” 

Danny’s hiss of “The what-” went ignored.

“But it will be! Soon! And those monsters won’t know what hit them!”

“That’s right dear! Now, kids, remember to stay inside after dark this week- I know, I know it’s raining, but the rain’ll let up eventually, and with the eclipse coming up you can’t be too careful!”

Sam looked like she wanted to say something, but stopped when she caught Tucker shaking his head at her. She sat back in her seat with a huff.

“Darn right!” Jack chimed in from where he’d finally set the huge weapon down on the kitchen counter. “This is a huge opportunity for hunting! All those monstrous meddlers will think they’re too strong to bother hiding like the foul fiendish felons that they are!”

“We’ll remind them why humans drove them into hiding in the first place!” Maddie chimed in. “Oh, I hope we can keep some captive specimens too, there’s so much to learn! The small ones just fall apart so easily, we can barely do even a single test…”

Jack squeezed his hand into a dramatic fist. “Of course we’re gonna capture ‘em! We’re gonna grab those ghastly goons or my name’s not Jack Fenton!”

With a whoop, he punched the air.

Jazz had been glaring at her parents, shoulders tense, but something twitched in the corner of her vision. When she looked, Danny’s reflection in the window was haunted. A pit formed in Jazz’s stomach, and her heart sparked with anger.

Danny was one of the ‘small ones’ in his other form.  She didn’t think they’d managed to catch any like him.  She didn’t think he would still be here if they had, but–

“Now, Jack. We’re not guaranteed to have success just yet,” her mother said, but she was smiling at Jack’s cheer. “We haven’t finished baiting everything. And without first-hand data to back up our research, it’s just that much harder to hunt efficiently, much less decide what bait is effective. Knowledge is power, of course!”

“And we’ll have plenty to work with soon, baby!  We’ll catch one this time for sure!  Maybe one of those ‘fairies’ that keep tricking the kids–”

Jazz shoved her chair back with a horrendous screech and slammed the fist still holding her dice down on the table, ignoring the one that went flying off across the room and the brilliant flare of lightning that had the overhead lights flickering. “No. No nono, no. You are not doing this tonight!

“Maybe, just maybe, for once in your life you should try to understand instead of just finding better ways to kill people who never did anything to you!”

"Jazz," said Maddie in a tone of forced patience, "they aren't people.  These things are monsters, even the small, pretty ones."

Danny had sunk so low in his chair that his chin was level with the tabletop.  He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.  

"Especially the small pretty ones!" shouted Jack.  

Danny flinched.

A bibliophile, Jazz had read the words ‘shaking with rage’ dozens of times.  She’d always thought it was a turn of phrase.  A metaphor.  A literary device.  But here she was, physically trembling.  Not all of the static on her skin could be attributed to the lightning outside.  

“Have you two even bothered to confirm that?” she asked. ”Or have you just gone around committing atrocities for the fun of it?”

“Don’t you take that tone with us, young lady! We’re just trying to keep you safe!” 

“You’re not trying to keep anyone safe with your awful, deranged experiments! I don’t know how you even call yourselves scientists!”

Thunder crashed, as if it had only been waiting for her cue.  

She looked between their shocked faces. Heaved one breath, two, and ran up the stairs towards her bedroom.

Maddie ran after her. “Jasmine Marie Fenton!”

Jazz whipped around and almost snarled at the look of indignation on her mother’s face.  Static jumped to her hand from the doorknob as she reached for it, but she didn’t flinch.  Instead, she squeezed it so hard she was surprised it didn’t come off. 

(She was fairly certain the few dice she still held in her other hand had fractured.  It was too bad.  She’d liked those.)

“Do you two even hear yourselves?  ‘Especially the pretty ones?’ ‘The small ones just fall apart so easily?’ You want to see monsters?  Take a look at your reflections!”

WHAM.

Jazz looked at the darkness in surprise. She hadn’t expected the door to slam shut quite like that. It had rattled the windows with a force she’d felt in her chest. And then there was the darkness.

Oh. It was a power outage. 

In the sudden quiet, Jazz heard her mother’s footsteps returning down the stairs, and then muted conversation. The front door opened, then shut.

She took the three steps to her window, and peered out.  Her parents were standing on the front stairs, headlamps strapped over their hazmat hoods and their arms full of pre-loaded net-launchers.  

They were still going hunting, then. After all that.

Jazz turned from the window before either of them could look up at her watching them and get ideas about whether she regretted her words. She didn’t.

As she followed Jack out onto the street, Maddie sighed. “That girl, I swear. I don’t know where she gets these ideas in her head…” 

Jack sighed. “I think it’s just a phase, Mads. Kids and the internet these days, you know?” 

“Maybe,” Maddie said. She looked up at Jazz’s window before she turned her attention back to her husband. “Either way, I’m not thrilled with her tone. We’ll have to have a talk.” 

“That’s the spirit!” Jack bellowed, grinning wide. “She’ll see that we were right, soon enough.  Everyone will, after we catch one of those dastardly fae!  Or a hobgoblin!  Or a vampire!  Or a sidewinder!  Or a dragon!”

“Yes, dear.  But first we need to figure out what took out the power, and…”  Maddie narrowed her eyes at the still-dark Fentonworks building behind them. “That’s strange. The generator should have brought everything back online by now.”

“I bet it was those dastardly gremlins! Well, if they think they’re gonna stop us from wrapping them all up in triple-strand hemp braid reinforced by silver-iron alloy, pinning them down with steel-jawed monster-chompers, or canning them up tight with the Fenton Thermos, then they’ve got another think coming!”

Lightning continued to flash overhead, bright enough to see color, and for the puddles and windows around them to flare brightly with reflected light.  The ozone and charge in the air, combined with the strange lighting and lack of normal city noises conspired to give a magical cast to the night.  

Magical meaning dangerous, in Maddie’s vocabulary.  

Usually, she wouldn’t leave the children home alone with the power off, but lightning alone wouldn’t knock out the electricity at Fentonworks, and they’d monster-proofed the backup generator to within an inch of its lifetime warranty.  Whatever was out here was their responsibility to deal with, as monster hunters.  Jazz, Danny, and his friends would be safe, behind the wards of Fentonworks.  This was for everyone else.  For all the citizens of Amity Park and the wider world who had been convinced that the supernatural didn’t exist, who were vulnerable, unprotected, unaware of the dangers they faced constantly.  

Even if Jazz couldn’t appreciate that.  

“This way!” cried Jack, shaking her from her partial reverie. 

She shook her head before following him.  That was a bad habit to get into while on a hunt.  But then, fighting with her children had always unsettled her.  

She followed Jack across the half-flooded road.  It would take days for things to dry, even if the rain let up.  

But the rain would let up sooner or later.  This storm may or may not be natural in origin, but they had good evidence that there was at least one creature that could manipulate the weather in the region.  No such creature would allow clouds to reduce the amount of power it could gain from basking under a Blood Moon, much less a Blood Moon that was both a supermoon and a blue moon.  

That only made it more important to catch whatever this was.  As excited as she and Jack were about the opportunity presented by the carelessness of monsters and the loss of their illusions, the lunar eclipse would be a dangerous time indeed.  Reducing the number of monsters present even by one would make everyone much safer.  

Jack skidded to a stop and fired one of his nets.  Its weighted edges wrapped around the glass sides of a bus shelter.  

“I think I really got it this time!” said Jack, bounding forward as Maddie covered him.  Nothing was going to sneak up on her husband on her watch.  

On the other hand… 

“Jack, sweetie, I don’t think there’s anything in the bus stop.”  Her goggles, which had been treated with their Fenton Paranormal Peeper Powder (not for direct use on eyes) (patent pending), weren’t picking up so much as a glimmer.  

“Not in the bus stop!  Down there!”  Jack pointed at a storm drain just under the overhang of the bus stop shelter.  

Gun ready, Maddie approached it.

The shadows between the grate bars gave way to the pale glare from her headlamp, throwing the inside into stark relief. The light sliced across water-stained concrete walls, reaching down until it met light.

The water at the bottom of the drain was stagnant, the drain so full of rotten leaves that they piled above the water in places, outlined in the brilliant white of her headlamp and bright enough to leave scribbled lines dancing in her vision.

The only motion Maddie could see in it was in her own face.

“Nothing,” she sighed. Chasing mirages again.  And wasn’t that a metaphor for life?  

“Oh,” said Jack. His face appeared alongside hers in the water. “Sorry, Mads, I really did think I saw something.”

Maddie patted him on the shoulder and surveyed the surrounding street.  The light from her headlamp bounced off of the mirrors of parked cars and the windows of nearby businesses.  All dark.  

But a few streets over, there was still light, still power.  

“Maybe you did, but something interested in electricity is going to go that way.”  She pointed.  “Let’s sweep these streets.”

Jazz didn’t sleep until her parents made their way home, defeated.  

She didn’t know if it was worry for them, as they ran around in a lightning storm, or if it was fear for everything else that could be out there that kept her awake.  

But if she had to guess, it’d be the latter. 

.

Omake:

“Well, uh. I guess game night’s over?” Danny asked. He was still under the table, having hidden when Jazz started yelling.

With a thunk, Tucker’s head met the table next to his laptop. It was followed by a swish, a rustle, and the clatter of dice falling to the floor. The room was still pitch black, only the occasional flicker of lightning casting any light. 

“Well,” Sam sighed. “At least your house is never boring.” Danny let out a dry laugh, missing most of its humor. 

“I could use a little more boring.” 

“Good luck with that,” Tucker said, his voiced muffled by the table. Danny sighed, having not yet moved. 

Good luck, indeed.