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Tucker’s feet beat against the ground, louder than he would have liked as he chased after a brightly glowing specter. The ghost he was following might have been a pug in life… might have been. It sure didn’t look it now. He winced as it howled, no doubt waking up half the neighborhood.
He wished Danny was here. Things were always better when Danny was the main firepower, with Tuck serving as the backup. Unfortunately, Danny was chasing down several completely unrelated ghosts on the other side of town. Sam as well had her own targets.
One of Skulker’s over-full game cages had burst, releasing a multitude of ghostly beasts on the town. Team phantom had been working since before the sun went down to contain them all, with Danny, Sam, and Tuck doing the legwork while Jazz guided them from the safety of the ops center, with access to all of the more sophisticated scanners. Valerie was also… somewhere. She’d been sighted all over, but Jazz wasn’t updating them on her position.
The dog-ish ghost stopped to tear into someone’s garbage cans, and Tuck took the moment to catch his breath. It was nearly one in the morning and he was absolutely exhausted . His legs were trembling and any moment he felt like they would give out. At this point he was armed with only a thermos, close to full, and two lipstick lasers since his bigger guns had been… disposed of by earlier opponents.
This was fine though. Danny was taking care of the worst of it. He’d probably be able to go home after this one. He took one last steadying breath, aimed his thermos, and-
Ducked out of sight.
One of the neighbors had come out to yell at the ghost for causing such a ruckus. Tucker sighed, slouching against the car he’d ducked behind. It wasn’t exactly a hard and fast rule, but it was… advised that Sam and Tuck stay out of sight while ghost hunting.
Sam was the one who had come up with it. Shortly after ghosts had started to become common knowledge, Sam had called their little group (before they’d had a name, even) to a meeting, and presented a powerpoint. The presentation mostly focused on the kind of press the other public hunters got, everything from Phantom’s very debated rep to the disdain of the fenton’s to the mystery of the Red Huntress.
Sam wanted attention, sure, but not this kind of attention. She’d rather any attention on her to come from her activism, rather than ghost hunting of all things. After all, if she wanted to have any activist credit outside of amity park, she couldn’t really present as a ghost hunter.
Her other point centered around Danny, and his secrets. If both Sam and Tuck were seen out and about fighting ghosts, without Danny but with Phantom… it was pretty much the opposite of what they wanted.
Tucker peeked out from his hiding place, and saw the thing-that-might-have-been-a-dog growling at the incensed local, who was trying his absolute best to cuss out the ghost (swear words were magically banned in Amity Park months ago- don’t ask). Tuck prepared himself for a fight, since one of the caveats to their little guideline was if others were in danger.
The ghost made a threatening move, swiping at the idiot with a roar. Tuck tried to spring into action- and promptly fell flat on his face as his legs refused to listen to him. He was so tired… The best he could do was twitch. It had been a mistake to sit down.
The guy yelped, dodging out of the way of the first swing. The ghost only got more mad, extending long, blunt claws from its misshapen paws. The blood roared in Tuck’s ears as he tried to gather energy he didn’t have to go over there and help-
Red light, contrasting with the ghost’s green, flooded the street as the Red Huntress released her Cube Beam. The ghost whined, being sucked up into the contraption.
Tuck heard Valerie exchange a few words with the homeowner, though he couldn’t pick out anything specific through his own waning adrenaline. With all the energy he could muster, he turned his head so he could see the Huntress’s form gliding away into the night. Man. A hoverboard would be nice right about now.
He fumbled into one of his pockets, pulling out a little tracker and clicking it on. Collapsing due to exhaustion on patrol had happened before, and they had planned for it. This signal wasn’t a panic signal, but it was a ‘come get me please’ signal. Someone would be over to pick him up within the hour.
The fact that they had a signal for that was a little concerning. The fact that things happened like this was inconvenient and frustrating, why should Tucker have to collapse behind random people’s cars every week while Valerie got to have a labor conserving hoverboard, and a mask to hide her identity? Come to think of it, why didn’t the majority of Team Phantom have identity-concealing masks? Why didn’t they have a lot of the stuff Valerie did? Tuck was smart, and he had access to pretty much all of the Fenton Tech, so…. Why not?
…Tucker may have just identified his next project.
—
“Tuck. What is this?” Sam asked, the skepticism in her voice nearly tangible.
“A solution to all my problems.” Tucker pushed his glasses up his nose like some sort of anime protagonist. He only did that when he was 100% confident in whatever dumb idea he’d concocted. Unfortunately, for as many of his ideas did actually work, it seemed the more confident he was the more likely they were to fail.
Sam looked at what he’d presented to her. It was one of the Fenton’s lab tables, with a large object covered in a sheet on top. The object in question happened to be shaped just like a human person. Sam had faith in Tucker, but this was still incredibly suspicious.
“Which problems? Exactly?” She said, hesitantly circling the thing.
“A few weeks ago I had an epiphany, why are we, the esteemed members of team Phantom, hiding behind trash cans and strangers' cars, tired and beaten, when we could be not doing those things?” Tucker said, gesticulating dramatically.
“Is this about you passing out in that old man’s driveway a while back?” Sam raised an eyebrow. She’d been the one to answer that particular team alert. She’d found him underneath some guy’s car, uninjured but undoubtedly unconscious.
“I- well yeah, kinda. That’s when I got the idea.” He admitted, glaring at her for ruining his dramatic tension.
“Again, what idea? You’ve yet to actually show me anything.” She eyed the human shaped thing again.
“Ugh fine, if you’re so impatient, I’ll show you.” He rolled his eyes, grabbing the sheet with both hands. He ripped it off, letting the fabric fall to the floor.
Underneath was what looked like an android- no, a suit . One a lot like Val’s new huntress outfit, only this one was bulkier, and had yellow orange accents instead of red. It also looked a lot like Tuck’s doom avatar. Oh.
“Tuck, not that this isn’t cool, but why do you think it’ll solve your problems?” Sam sighed.
“Well that’s the thing! I was exhausted from fighting ghosts all night, yeah? And this ghost was attacking a guy, and I was too tired to do anything, and too worried about being seen! But then Val just swoops in and takes care of it like it’s nothing, even though I know she caught more ghosts than both of us combined.” He said, getting louder as he got more impassioned. “I thought, hey! I probably have the resources and skill to make something like her suit! And here we are. This will hide our identities, and make it easier to get around without dropping dead from exhaustion.”
“That- hm.” She hummed, considering. “That might work.”
“Right?”
“So, this one is obviously yours,” She nodded at the yellow accents. “Where’s mine?”
“Oh, you’re gonna love this!”
—
Something was up with his friends, Danny could tell. It had started a few weeks ago, after the incident with Skulker’s burst cage. He wouldn’t call Tucker distant , exactly, but the total amount of time they’d spent together had dropped significantly. He’d noticed after having a day out with Jazz for the third time in a week. Usually he’d be hanging out with Sam and Tucker, but something had changed enough for him to have three whole days of bonding time with Jazz by Friday.
He’d thought of approaching him about it, but it really didn’t feel like Tuck was avoiding him on purpose, just that he had something else going on. What that something else was? Danny had no idea. The urge to be nosy was growing every single day.
Then, about a week ago, Sam had joined in whatever Tuck was up to. Three days with Jazz turned into seven as his friends stopped inviting him out completely. The few times he’d asked to hang out, they’d apologized and said they were busy. He believed them, he just wondered what they were busy with. At that point, Jazz had been the only thing keeping him from flying out to figure out what the heck they were doing.
His ghost sense went off. It would have woken him up if he hadn’t been staying up thinking about his friends.
He sighed, letting his rings out. He floated up and through the wall to Jazz’s room, noting that she was also not asleep. She looked up from her book when he came in, nodding immediately and closing her book with a snap.
“Ghost sense?”
“Yep.”
An explosion sounded from somewhere outside their building.
“Put on your fenton phones, I’ll head up to the ops center.” Jazz pulled on a jacket before sprinting out of the room. Danny phased back into his own room, snatching his fenton phones out of his wall before soaring out into the late amity sky.
Eleven at night on a school night, and yet there were still people wandering the streets, plenty of them students. Danny wished he didn’t have the same luxury. Still, with so many people out, he probably wouldn’t be able to count on Sam and Tucker’s help. Val though, he could already sense her suit’s ecto signature in the air.
The ghost in question looked like a giant squid crossed with some kind of feline creature. That is to say, an abomination that was cuter than it had any right to be. Danny sighed, surveying the damage. The cat-squid had destroyed a gas station; hence the explosion.
“Hey!” He called, making the thing look at him. “Any chance you’re intelligent?”
“Groaooowowow!” It roared, and swung a tentacle at him.
Danny, once again, forgot to dodge. The appendage hit him full force, sending him flying into the rubble of the gas station.
“Yeah, okay. Gonna be like that, huh?” He groaned, pulling himself back into the air. He charged an ectoray in his left hand, shielding with his right as it swung at him again.
Before he could shoot at it though, it was hit from the side by a different ectoray. At first, Danny thought that Val had arrived… but that blast had been yellow. Val had several shades of red and occasionally even some green, but never any yellow .
Flying into the scene on a hoverboard was a figure that, at first glance, did appear a lot like Val. Only, this person was a lot bulkier, a guy, and yellowy-orange themed instead of red.
Oh gosh.
That was Tuck.
Danny had played enough doom with the guy to know his senses, and fought enough ghosts to know how he fought. There was no doubt about it, that was Tuck in that suit. What, had he copied Val? That was… actually kind of smart. He was helping after all, in a fight Danny had thought he would have been useless in.
Okay, this was kind of cool.
“Dude!” Tuck yelled, voice coming through slightly modulated. “Did you see that? Ah! This is so cool!”
“Dude!” Danny yelled back, a grin splitting across his face.
“Don’t get too excited, it’s getting back up.” Another voice said. Danny turned, and saw yet another hoverboard figure soaring toward them, this one in huge, glowing purple armor.
Sam!
“Oh… wow… who could have seen this coming?” Jazz said over the comms, in a way that made it abundantly clear that she knew about this ahead of time.
So this is what they had been working on.
“Hey-! What the-”
Val had arrived.
“Who are you guys?!”
“Just some copycats, don’t mind them,”: Danny said, floating up to her. “We have a ghost to catch!”
“Hey!” Tuck said.
The ghost tried to grab at them, but Sam shot the tentacles away.
“Y’know, I think four people might be overkill for this,” She said.
“Yeah,” Jazz agreed.
“Okay,” Tuck said, pulling out a thermos attachment on an arm. “Let’s wrap this up, and then maybe go get some Nasty Burger? Yeah?” He activated it, sucking the thing up into it.
“Right, Nasty Burger, so you can explain what all this is about,” Val said, floating closer to tuck, as threateningly as possible.
“Sure sure, whatever you want,”
Danny grinned. Oh man, this was great. Now they didn’t just have the Red huntress, they also had Purple and Yellow as well.
“How do you like your surprise, Danny?” Jazz asked, switching over into a private channel.
“I love it, how long have you known?”
“A few weeks. Tuck even made me my own suit. It’s blue.”
“Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to see that.”