Room 2342 - It's Where The DOOOOOOM Is

[gone_byebye]

Ray was really, really, really starting to loathe the sight of Sumerian- sorry, Sumero-Akkadian- spirit containment gridding on the walls. Cuneiform got old fast if you had to stare at it for eight hours a day, every day.

He blinked a few times and wondered whether the fact that the patterns were swimming a bit was necessarily a bad thing.

Then he caught sight of Danny's grinning face and realized the answer was yes.

Comments

[gone_byebye]

Ray nodded, pushing himself upright as well. "I'm sorry, guys. I really am. I put up a sign on the bulletin board asking for you guys to come contact one of us if you happened to see it, but I'm guessing you must've skipped that part of the Bar. Maybe we should do some proper introductions- I'm Ray Stantz, this is my friend and colleague Peter Venkman, there's another guy around here who goes by the name Egon Spengler and is about four inches taller than me with freaky blond hair. We're the Ghostbusters, and we've been waiting for you to turn up, because we're gonna need your help to get him-" He jerked a thumb towards the thermos. "-back to the kid we all know and love."

[bringnewjokes]

Sam crossed her arms. "He's still in there. That's why Jazz and I tried that. When he shocked me, just for a second, his eyes went back to normal..."

She inhaled deeply. "Okay, before we do anything, we have some questions.."

[gone_byebye]

"Yeah, I know." Ray rubbed at the back of his neck. "We had a telepath check him out and confirm that. Actually we had a telepath check him out and try to get Danny back in charge of himself, but that didn't work, darn the luck."

"But sure, go ahead. We owe you that much. Right, Pete?"

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

Peter eyed him, "What did I tell you about those people skills, Ray?"

He then slipped into smooth talking Venkman mode, "Yeah, see, kind of a long story. Been trying to help him out with the noggin, but as you see, no dice so far."

[ilovebearbert]

"How did this happen, again?" Jazz asked. "You said something about an evil woman. Was she a ghost?"

[gone_byebye]

"Don't I wish," Ray said fervently. "I'd have taken her out myself if she were. No, she was alive, all right. She had some kind of incredibly nasty magic power. She'd just taken a wand or something away from this other kid, and Danny flew right through her so he could grab it back, and that was when she basically said 'oo, thank you for the present, Draco' and cast the spell." He eyed the thermos guiltily. "He screamed like a stuck pig, and then he went into red-eye-flamey-hair-bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha mode, and that was when I went for the trap. But it was definitely a magic spell and not a ghost power."

He'd been replaying the scene in his mind for more than a month now. It was going to be one of those things he wouldn't ever be able to forget.

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that's the little ...jerk. Sold Danny out. Kid's got enough to deal with, he didn't need this."

Venkman eyed them some, "But I'm not saying anything you don't already know. Seen a lot too, I'll bet?" There waa an assessing look to his eyes as he studied them thoughtfully. "Quick thinking there on the trick and the trap, by the way."

[bringnewjokes]

"Well, Tucker and I have been helping Danny since the beginning," Sam said. "And Jazz is Danny's brother, so she has the same--" crackpot "--ghost-hunting parents.

"Hey, I have a question?" Tucker put in. "What the heck is this place? Danny told us a little bit, but not everything..."

[gone_byebye]

Ray drew a deep breath, ready to explain in all the gory detail he could muster, but Peter gave him a Look. He flinched. "Um. Basically this place is where all the possible universes that could exist come together. People wind up here from just about any reality you could mention- although for some reason most of them are humans from Earth, and most of those are from late twentieth or early twenty-first century. Anyway, it's a bar, yeah, and it's at the end of the universe because that's the only place other than the Big Bang where everything comes together at once. I could go into more detail but it would involve a lot of math and Dr. Venkman there would pull my ears."

[fryertuck]

"Sooo, weird alternate dimension. Got it," Sam said, and it was apparent that she, Tucker, and Jazz, realy didn't need much further explanation to figure things out.

Tucker looked at the thermos. It rattled. "Uh, guys? We need to get those shields up and running again."

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

Peter nodded approvingly at Ray, before adding to the kids, "Yeah, there's some rules, but all you need to worry about with that, is no violence or business in the bar." Figuring they were still just young enough where the third rule wouldn't apply.

He then gave a grim nod, "Ok, Ray, how fixable are the shields? Anything besides the Sumerian mumbo-jumbo that is? Think they'll work in about ohhhh a minute?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray peered at the machinery, and nodded. "We're good. There's a couple of wires to plug back in and a couple switches to flip." As he spoke he got down on his knees and started doing exactly that. "Okay, we're going to want the Fenton Shield Mark II back up first, and then the MiB theta-wave blocker, and then the magnetic bottling, so let's get everything into position before we flip the switches, all right?"

[fryertuck]

Tucker nodded and went to work, on the Fenton gHost Shield.

"Y'know, these modifications are a great," he said, looking over the changes to the shield.

Jazz was fixing the markings.

Sam had been passed the Thermos by Tucker and she was just holding it as everyone bustled around, a sour look on her face.

[gone_byebye]

"You're gonna want to thank Doctor Spengler for those," Ray noted. "About all I really contributed to that was the new power cell design. Those K-14s are an absolute lifesaver, and I don't just mean that figuratively. I think you're also gonna want a look at what happened when Egon got his hands on the plans for the Fenton Specter Deflector, although he kept trying to change the name and I had to crack him over the head with a mechanical pencil to make him stop."

He glanced over his shoulder at Sam. "Um. Sorry about that voice thing before, by the way. You sort of caught me flat-footed and I didn't know what else to do."

[bringnewjokes]

She just looked off to the side, and shook her, then looked at the thermos again.

"You'd think that--" I'd "--we'd have realized he wasn't...him. Especially after last time."

[gone_byebye]

"Last time?" Ray blinked. "Never mind. We can talk about that later. Are we good on your end, Tucker?"

As far as Ray was concerned, fourteen years old was college age, and that meant 'adult interaction' for social purposes. Granted, Ray was not the most socially adept man in the universe, but eh.

[fryertuck]

"Fenton Ghost Shield's ready to go." He tapped a button and it sprung up again.

"I fixed the markings," said Jazz. Good thing she has a photographic memory.

"We'll need to release him in there before putting up the other shields. Are they ready?" Tucker asked.

[gone_byebye]

There was a bit of a frtz noise and a poke, but Ray nodded. "Yeah, they're good. Let's do this."

[ilovebearbert]

"I should do it," Jazz says, reaching for the thermos.

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

"Careful there." Peter commented, eyeing the thermos warily, and taking a ready position just in case.

He then mouthed to Ray, 'Voice thing??? What?'

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

There was a whoosh as Jazz pressed the button and Danny landed in a furious, undignified heap, glaring daggers at them all.

Immediately, he opened his mouth again...

[gone_byebye]

"I'm sorry, Danny."

Silently looking back at him, Ray flipped the switches to bring the other two shields back online.

"... I truly am."

[fryertuck]

As Danny screamed, Tucker looked confused as he held his ears and he shouted over the din:

"How is he not tiring out yet?! He usually can only do this for so long!"

Finally, it stopped.

[doc-venkman.livejournal.com]

Peter nodded, "We'll get him back. The right way." There was a determined look in his green eyes.

Off Tucker's comment, he frowned some, "Maybe he had a growth spurt or something?" Danny was still a growing ghost-kid. Which meant his powers were getting STRONGER. Shit... this was not gonna be easy.

[gone_byebye]

"We've had PKE meters running on him the whole time he's been here, just in case something spiked," Ray noted quietly. "Haven't had time to analyze it yet. That was sort of going to be for after we got hold of you guys-" He was looking at Tucker, Sam and Jazz now. "-and got things set right. We need to talk, guys- and fast."