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Danny, Sam and Tucker were having a perfectly normal afternoon, enjoying a rare moment of free time, in which all three teenagers had finished their backlog of schoolwork, and did not have any ghost fights to attend to.
All of that ended when a leather-clad catboy fell out of the sky.
The Catboy, in fact, who had earned a Capital C to his name by the virtue of being the only leather-clad catboy Danny knew.
Beside Danny, Sam tensed. Tucker growled, a rumbling sound deep in his throat. Danny felt more than saw Sam flip the safety off her wrist ray, while Tucker slipped into a stance in front of Danny, more than ready to tear into poor Catboy with his sharper-than-normal nails.
Danny was suddenly intimately, painfully aware of the fact that he had forgotten to mention his encounters with Catboy to his friends. Opps.
His core twinged; was this how Catboy felt when Danny fell out of a portal in front of Buggirl?
…double opps.
Catboy did a backflip moments before he became a splat on the ground, landing on his feet in a crouch. Like…well, like a cat. He flicked the imaginary dirt off his suit as he straightened, and blinked as he properly registered the trio in front of him.
Catboy’s bemused expression transformed into a delighted smile. Not seeming to care about the two strangers in fighting stances in front from him, his slitted irises locked onto Danny’s face. “Portal Boy! How are you? I’m back in Amity Park again, aren’t I?”
Danny pasted a smile on his face. The smile did not reach his eyes, because they were too busy shouting oh my Zone please don’t incriminate me in front of my friends, Catboy, for the love of the Ancients. “…hi, Catboy.”
Sam narrowed her eyes. “Who is that, D—”
Oh, no. Swift as the wind, Danny slapped a hand over Sam’s mouth. He felt Sam’s disgruntled scowl beneath his palm, but that was a problem for future Danny. He had more important problems to deal with right now—more important problems being named Catboy, who apparently could not get a hint.
Catboy glanced between the three friends, his belt tail flicking in excitement. “So which of you are the friend who likes special effects?”
“Uh—”
“Oh, never mind.” Catboy shook his head, his smile faltering slightly. He rotated his wrist. “I gotta go now. My girlfriend’s here to pick me up.”
A loveliness of ladybugs crawled out of thin air, encircling said wrist before climbing up his arm. Chat’s hand faded from view. Sam stared in morbid fascination.
With his remaining hand, Catboy waved cheerfully. “See you around, Portal Boy and friends. No offense, but I hope we don’t meet again soon!”
The ladybugs gradually engulfed the rest of him, before winking out of existence. Soon, the only evidence of Catboy’s previous existence was the three friends standing on the sidewalk, two of them confused.
Danny removed his hand from Sam’s mouth, and heaved a sigh of relief.
That relief did not last.
Sam turned to Danny, her purple eyes sharp. Danny blanched. “Okay. Spill.”
“…uh. Catboy is a werecat.” Danny explained, as if it was obvious. “We’ve met before.”
“But…he’s not a werecat, Danny.” Tucker interrupted, his brows furrowed. “He doesn’t have that…that musk. His girlfriend might be a witch, though. Those…ladybugs smelled like if Sam’s magic was a ninja who could walk on walls, and decided to use that skill for the sole purpose of jumpscaring people.”
Danny blinked. “Huh.” He had assumed…
Sam looked contemplative. “Do you think I can learn how to do tha—wait, no.” She glared at Danny, “You aren’t distracting me that easily.”
“I didn’t even say anything!”
Sam narrowed her eyes, “So. Just how did you two meet? That guy called you Portal Boy, Danny. What happened?”
“Why would you assume it was my fault?”
Sam raised an eyebrow.
Tucker coughed awkwardly, “She never said that.”
“…oh.” Danny muttered. He cursed, insulting Vlad’s stupid boxers. “Fine! Catboy…might’ve almost caught me detransforming in an alley. But he didn’t see anything important, really, only a flash of white light. I caught a flash of green-black light from him too—probably some kind of magic—and we, um, kind of told each other we were testing out special effects.”
Tucker gaped. “And that worked?”
“Your lying skills at your finest, huh.” Sam snorted. Danny pouted at her.
“It’s called plausible deniability.” He protested, “If we believed each other’s excuses, we wouldn’t have to explain why we were acting all suspicious in the same alley!”
“Fine, you have a point.” Sam conceded. “What happened next?”
“And then…uh…you remember those two times when I got sucked through the same portal when exploring the Ghost Zone? I ended up in Paris both times, and met Catboy and his girlfriend, who dresses like a ladybug and has wings. It was pretty cool. The first time, they were fighting against a robot that’s a crime against fashion, and the second time…I kinda crashed their date? Buggirl was pretty mad at me.”
Danny paused. “Also, Dani met them when she was visiting Paris. Apparently, Catboy stalked her for a bit because she looked like me.”
“That’s unfair!” Tucker exclaimed, sounding hurt just enough to make Danny’s core twinge with guilt. “How come you told Dani but not us?”
Danny cringed. “…sorry. It just…came up on our bimonthly phone call when Dani mentioned she was visiting Paris next? And really, it wasn’t that big of a deal, so I just never mentioned it to you.”
“‘Not that big of a deal’, my ass. This is the sort of thing we should know about, Danny. What if Catboy’s giant robot decided to follow him to Amity and wreak havoc here? Or if Buggirl took revenge on you for interrupting her date?” Sam, the second most responsible person Danny knew (the first being Jazz, obviously), pinched the bridge of her nose. “…you know what, never mind. Why do I even bother?”
Tucker, the third most responsible person Danny knew (and wasn’t that a tragedy), simply shrugged. “Whatever, man. So are we still going to the arcade or what? Before Skulker or yet another frootloop shows up.”
Right on cue, a ballistic missile flew out of the air. It buried its head into the concrete a few feet from the trio, and exploded. Immediately, Sam conjured a purple forcefield to shield them from the worst of the fiery green explosion. The forcefield wasn’t enough to block out the too-familiar voice declaring, “Ghost child, today will be the day I mount you on my wall!”
Danny and Sam glared at Tucker. Tucker, the evil jinx, at least had the decency to wince.