milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Danny had a cast on his wrist. His parents and Jazz had been immensely relieved to find out he was okay when he got home, and coming up with an explanation as to why he looked like he'd taken a tumble down a cliff was easy with how trashed the town was. ("I was downtown--got hit with some of the rubble, but I'm okay.") They got him to the hospital, got his wrist in a cast, and took him home, tucking him in and babying him for a bit, before leaving him with Jazz and heading out to clean up the city--sending the remaining ghosts back into the ghost zone.

From their calls back home he and Jazz found out all the portals were clearing up.

Good.

Peace and quiet was a rare commodity indeed.

Before he could relax, however, he desperately needed a shower. He had to take a bath instead because of the cast, with his right arm in a plastic bag and rubber bands on it, to keep it dry. That was annoying.

He would've gotten into his pjs and gone to take another nap, but the bar had other plans.

As such, a lightly bruised teenage boy with wet hair, and wearing naught but a towel and a plastic-bagged, rubber-banded cast walked into the bar, still brushing his teeth distractedly with his good hand.

He blinked his eyes open. When he realized he wasn't in his hallway, he stopped brushing and went scarlet, turning to the door as it snapped shut behind him.

"I sfpill gav to sfpit!" he said to the door around a mouth full of toothpaste mange, his toothbrush still being juggled in his hand as he made sure the towel was secure so no one could see his rear. He tried to open the door and when it wouldn't, he kicked it, then started hopping because he'd hurt his toe. "No fwair!"

But of course this sort of thing would happen to him, considering his pants went clear and fell down at the most inoppurtune times on a regular basis.

Embarassment was his life.

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A wry chuckle.

"Well, red does seem to be your color," he says. "Though nudity taboos are a bit tiresome at times, I must admit."

Loa gives the cast (and the rest of the damage Danny sports) a jaundiced eye.

"This is becoming depressingly familiar. I hope to Valen that I will not always meet you when you look like you've been dragged face-down through a mass-driver. I suppose we should put off your first denn'na lesson until that bone knits."

"Nudity taboos are very good things that prevent people from going around with their junk hanging out all over the place," Danny insisted, because while nudity not being a taboo would be great with all the naked girls walking around, there were certain people that really oughtn't not be naked.

Like other dudes. And old people. Eeyuck.

"It's actually not that depressing, even if it's familiar," Danny said cheerfully. "It's over. Not superheroing in general, but with Ray and Peter and Egon's help, and the help of my friends, we defeated Gozer. Everything's quieting back down back home. It's not perfect and something will break the peace eventually, but it's nothing I can't handle now."

The Ranger laughs indulgently as he slings his robe over himself with practiced ease.

"If you say so, young Bearach. I am glad to hear of your triumph...and hopefully a respite in which to heal."

He gestures to the table with tea and...something else. "And, perhaps, learn?"

He sat down, bubble pipe hanging throughtfully.

"Is there anything you could teach me now?" he asked, taking a seat, robe hugged tightly around himself. He put the bubble pipe on the table. "Like the Vulkor mind-mesh or something?"

"I was thinking more of an exercise to help you develop more precise control of your present abilities," he replies with a chuckle.

On the table are some slabs of...crystal, maybe? But they are cloudy, not clear.

"If you like, we can also begin on personal mental defenses afterward. It's a good idea to have your own mind secure before you start reaching out to others, after all."

His expression went grim. "To be honest, I don't care so much about reaching out to others as I do about making sure no one else can reach into mine. Could I learn to close it off? So nobody could just reach in and mess with it? I've head people mess with my head before."

Not just Blodwen, either. Ember and her music, Freakshow...

"That is a wise attitude," the Ranger says as he sits down and picks up a slab of crystal-stuff and sets it on the table before him. "The mind of another is not a place to go unless you have permission or else under the most dire of emergencies."

He smiles tightly. "No defense is completely unassailable, but I think we can make the lives of people who try it with you very difficult. Now...how about a little sculpting?"

A tiny, white point of light appears at Loa's fingertips. He brushes it against the slab and a shard flies off. "This material is strong, but brittle. Shaping it requires finesse rather than brute power."

More chips and shards land on the table as he works. "Of course, it makes it more challenging to carve as you try for smaller and smaller forms. This is our primary control exercise. After mastering one form, you attempt it again in a smaller scale."

After a few more passes, he sits back. The 12 inch x 12 inch square is now a six-pointed star. "Now, you try. Go slowly and be patient."

Actually, this was something of a challenge, because Danny was used to making big booms, not work that required control and finesse.

But that was exactly the point of this.

He took a deep breath, thinking, and lifted his good hand, concentrating to get the energy just on his fingertips.

Control, right? He could control things easy.

He touched a fingertip to the crystal to shear off a little bit.

Pop! There was a sound like a gunshot and bits of crystal popped, leaving a little smoking hole in the crystal.

Danny who had started and covered his face with his hand peeked through his fingers.

"I think I'm going to need a lot of practice with this," he said, looking thoughtfully at his hand. Control was not one of the things he had a lot of. Patience maybe, but not control.

Well, at least he didn't shatter the whole crystal.

"It will take time," the Ranger says, nodding as he sweeps the fragments away. "But I don't believe there is any particular rush. Remember, you must be patient with yourself as well."

He focused, index finger glowing, trying to touch it to the surface of the crystal, his tongue half-hanging out his mouth as he concentrated.

There was another pop, but he kept trying until he managed to shear off a little bit of crystal in a manner that wasn't explosive.

Looking pleased with himself, he said, "Cool."

"This is--a lot harder than you--made it look," he said, as he went on, shearing off little bits of crystal with ecto.

He chuckles at that...but kindly.

"I may have just a bit more experience in this, Danny."

He motions to a waitrat to order fresh drinks for both of them.

"So you told me you'd achieved a great victory. May I ask for details?"

Still working away, he said distractedly, "Sumerian God. Gozer. Lovecraft-kind of thing. It was trying to--get into my world through a hole in reality made by this building. It was designed by this insane cultist--and charging up psychic energy for years. That's why I kept coming in so banged up. Little holes were showing up everywhere to the ghost zone, letting things out, doors to Milliways kept popping up more often too--reality was, like, thinner, or something.

Do you know Ray Stanz or any of the other Ghostbusters, by any chance?" Danny asked.

He grins.

"I have met them," he says. "Ray, Peter...and dear little Maria." Loa's eyes sparkle at the memory. "Such a delightful little girl. A mind like a diamond in the noonday sun."

The waitrat scurries up. On his tray is a milkshake (presumably for Danny) and a glass of what looks like water.

That is, until it jostles a bit and breaks into a storm of iridescence.

"I take it they went to help you."

Taking a moment to look at the water made Danny think about how talking with Loa was a lesson in one other thing--surreality.

"Maria's cute," Danny acknowledged, even though it was almost like pulling teeth for him to admit it.

"And yeah. They came to help--actually, it was more like I helped them. Gozer took the form of uh, well this giant version of a pop star that's popular in my world--that's what popped into Tucker's had when Gozer was taking form--and I held him off while they blew up the temple.

Also some kids in rockets came and helped. That part was weird. Er. Than usual. But I would have been in huge trouble without them."

Just wait until the Ranger introduces him to spoo.

The shock of slug-based foodstuff safely in the future, the Ranger leans back and sips his drink, contemplating the sketchy overview (and the horror of Giant Pop Stars).

"Many forces coming together to draw a line against the darkness. A common theme among the universes it seems. Did these 'kids in rockets' stick around for introductions? Will they be allies in the future?"

Danny was never. Ever. Going to eat or drink anything slug-based or called something like 'spoo.'

"Timmy. The one kid was Timmy and he stayed really quick to make sure we were okay, but he left after that. No explanations, didn't tell us how a bunch of ten year olds got rockets to fly around in. After that, he booked. We didn't get to talk to any of the others."

Little bits of crystal were chipping off now, smaller and smaller.

A pity. It actually tastes quite good marinated in lime juice and grilled.

The Ranger, however, is not focused on expanding Danny's culinary horizons. He watches the boy's work with quiet approval.

"I suppose they have secrets to keep. After all...I'm sure their parents would have some rather pointed things to say about their children having rocket packs in the first place, much less using them in battle."

A subtle inquiry about his parents' knowledge about his "job", perhaps?

"Oh no, they weren't in packs--they were in, like these sit-in rockets. Just zooming around and shooting lasers or something. I doubt their parents would be any cooler with it than mine would be about me going around and nearly breaking my neck all the time."

"Parents rarely are," he agrees, making a mental note of this. "No matter the age of the 'child' involved. Mother...she did a good job of concealing it, but she wasn't exactly thrilled when I decided to join the Anla'shok. In spite of our strengths, it is the most hazardous profession in our time."

"Superheroing generally is." More biting of the tip of his tongue as he concentrated. "For a while, I hid it because I thought my parents would think I was a freak. They knew abou the accident, but they thought I was fine afterwards--they didn't know what it had done to me. And I didn't tell them--they absolutely hate ghosts, and see them as this menace to society and whenever they saw Danny Phantom--me--on the news they just wanted to catch me and take me apart molecule by molecule," Danny explained. "I...I know better now though."

He gives the boy a long look.

"And, now that you know better, you keep this a secret from them to save them worry?"

One long finger reaches out to tap the crystal. "There may be a flaw here from that ripple in the sheen. Be extra careful."

"They would accept me. Something happened--my secret got revealed to the whole world, even though I was able to change it so it didn't happen."

He could have changed a lot of things then, but he hadn't. He still wasn't sure why.

"They would worry."

He took a moment to look at his little sculpture, thinking, before moving on again.

"Don't they worry about you already?"

He doesn't know the specifics about the lengths Danny has to go to to keep his secret...but he can guess.

"Yeah, but I'm a good liar. Jazz helps me come up with excuses for the broken bones, the bruises. At worst, they think I'm being bullied--they don't know I'm fighting some things to the death, and it's better that way."

"I'm not sure about 'better'," he says. "The longer this goes on, the harder it will be if something happens to you that cannot be explained away."

Like, maybe, dying?

"But I'm not one to dictate to you how you should live your life." He looks down at the nearly, completed work and nods approvingly. "Very good for your first effort."