FOP Burning Black3: Chapter 9

9


Crocker toyed with the pieces of technology from the device that had intrigued him for so long. The programming for the control units was nearly complete and it was only a matter of time before the units themselves would be built at each of the Dark Spires. He smiled as he played with the bits of hardware on his desk, then looked up as an opening slid aside in the wall of his lair, allowing a fairy capture unit to hover in with a small box in its net. He lifted an eyebrow at it, pulling it free and sitting back down at his workstation. He had only been half-joking when he told Remy to retrieve a sample of the new Timmy's DNA for research. To think that he actually went and attempted it; which of the two of them was the true 'crazy one'?

He opened the box almost reverently, and allowed a smile to spread over his face slowly as it was revealed to contain several strands of hair piled neatly on the velvety lining. The teacher delicately stroked his fingertip against the strands. Soft and fine, and a shade of brown that seemed faintly familiar.

"Let's find out what magic you're using, New Timmy." Crocker remarked and placed the hairs into a containment unit at his workstation. He turned to his keyboard and began tapping in commands, bringing several programs and devices to work on scanning the strands. As they ran, he sat back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together.

In another few weeks every Dark Spire in Dimmsdale would have a set of control units to take over the job of governing a squadron of anti-magic units. The server system would only be bothered by the squadrons if they were requesting data that the control units couldn't supply, or if they successfully captured a fairy and needed to report it to Master Control through their respective Spire. Or, Crocker added as an afterthought, the control units themselves were destroyed, but the brunet had stopped destroying other units once he stumbled on the servers' weakness, save for nullifiers and the random destroyer or capture units that got too close to one of them.

He watched the screen working, then thought over what reports came in from various investigation teams. First were the results of the scans and tests on the green substance found at the site of the reconstruction of Spire Seven. It was something called ectoplasm, a form of energy used by ghosts to stay 'alive' and use all manners of powers. It was matched to samples and test results found in a database operated by a family in another part of the country, and it even touched off of a file in that database. Crocker already had his suspicions on what the file would be named, and wasn't entirely surprised to receive a copy of it with the words 'Danny Phantom' printed all along the label.

He was expected to do something about it. Really, what did these people think he was? Crocker specialized in fairies, not ghosts. They should have hired that family of ghost hunters to deal with the spook. But apparently ghosts couldn't handle anything that was used to make the black granite armor of the Dark Spires, granite that Remy had made sure to oversee before installation and construction, so as long as the walls had that granite, things should turn out fine.

The results of the investigation of Spire Five's destruction came in. A majority of the units destroyed there had been sliced into by some strange cutting edge that no one could quite figure out. The edges were too smooth to have been a blade and the quickly made curves indicated that a laser wasn't involved. Blades would have left chips and nicks in the metal, and no laser in current development had the ability to make such smooth curves in such a short time frame. The investigation team continued working on theories as to what caused it. There was also a vast crater that hadn't been gouged out by some random falling equipment, and looked as though it had been hit by a high-impact explosive. At one point, the team had found what appeared to be a large bloodstain but the rain had destroyed most of it and not enough evidence was left to help them identify where it came from.

Bribes were quietly going out to kill the stories of alien invaders in Dimmsdale, and there was much covering up being done at the building where the fairy capture units had crashed through in their dash for the fairy whose DNA was in his records. That fairy had never been recovered, despite the heightened alerts at the other Spires. They still reported that it would move about within the region, but it disappeared at random intervals, vanishing into the areas where the Spires had been destroyed. Ah, well. So he would have to wait a touch longer for the ultimate wish to be granted. That was fine with him. Crocker wanted to have his final absolution first, face the new Timmy and receive his judgment before unleashing the fairy magic that would resurrect the Heart of Dimmsdale and save the city from an eternity of misery.

The computer beeped at him and Crocker looked up to study the results of the scans and figure out what magic was being used against him. He frowned after a moment, cleaned his glasses, then studied them again. Another moment and he rubbed at his eyes. Yet another and he ordered the programs to rescan the strands of hair. He waited and watched the entire proceedings this time to be sure no errors cropped up. None did and yet the results came back the same, baffling him.

"This can't be right." Crocker muttered and glared at the strands of hair in the containment unit, "These must have been contaminated!" And yet the results remained on the screen, unerring and damnable. The retired teacher sat back in his chair, gazing up at the markers and symbols on the monitor with an annoyed expression that faded to begrudging acceptance. It would explain a lot, this new truth he discovered.

Why the boy seemed to escape Death so easily; why he used magic so easily; why he looked so faintly familiar and comforting; why Remy should have another reason to despise this boy; why fairies would be willing to fight for him, die for him; why he was affected by nullifiers; why he sought out help from children and angels and ghosts. This explained it all.

He brought up another file, compared the signatures, blinked in surprise, then sat back with a toothy smile.

Oh, yes, that explained it all perfectly. He was happy with this new knowledge. When the day of absolution came, he would have all the power he needed to resurrect Timmy Turner. And he would have the new Timmy to thank for it.


On Remy's end, testing and tracing the strands of hair was going to take longer. Crocker had absconded with a majority of the best technologies he developed for his own personal use and all the boy millionaire had to work with was standard procedures and machines. He did, however, find to his pleasant surprise that he had been able to wish the delivery of the strands of hair to a genetics lab without much fuss from Juandissimo. So there was a catch to the boy's immunities. That may be useful later.

The results would come back to him in a couple of days. Fine. He'd just deal with school the rest of that time.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Oberon High~

"A.J., what is so fascinating about your program this time that you have to have your nose touch the screen?" Timmy grumbled from where he lay on the grass of the school yard during lunch. The S-List, having lost their original gathering spot of the 'bench on the fringe' to a new set of outcasts, had decided to convene under the tree not far from it, the same tree Timmy himself sat under when choosing not to associate himself with either the Populars or the Others.

Gathered all around in the shade of the tall oak, the teens alternated between eating lunch and studying the screen of the laptop A.J. babied to no end. Even Tootie was jostling for position to see what was happening. Timmy, having no interest in something that continuously recreated his fatal plunge from the jungle gym for all the world to see, flopped onto the grass away from them and let his mind drift on several problems that he sorely wanted to solve.

He wanted to know what was happening with his cousin in Amity Park. It wasn't fair that he kept calling Cousin Danny to help him with the fight against the Spires and then be left out of the loop when there was a chance he could return the help. He wanted to get back to Dimmsdale Elementary and gain entry to the Crocker Cave. All of Crocker's old data and inventions were in there and could be of great help to them in figuring out how to destroy the Dark Spires more easily. And even better was the fact that the Fairy Portal was down there, easy access to Fairy World so there could be a possibility of sneaking Cosmo and Wanda back there to recover their own wands.

Or he could use it to see where Anti-Cosmo went after he poofed off in that mock indignation.

Then there was the matter of trying to figure out what the heck Remy was thinking when he yelled out about getting a 'sample', especially when he ran by and yanked on the top of his head. Which was still somewhat sore but then Cure didn't fix everything he wanted it to, so oh well. The most the blonde would have gotten was strands of his hair. What good would that do?

"Based on the answers I got from you about Francis' basement and the recreated jungle gym in there, I'm adding in new variables to the program." A.J. returned seriously, "You said the room felt like it was spinning even though nothing was really moving."

"I just ate. Do we really have to go into that?" the brunet sighed, toying with the fairies in their squirrel forms, sending them both tumbling along the grass in giggles.

"I ran a different simulation last night on my personal lab computer. The only way I can see that the sensation of motion could take place in the way you felt and saw it is if one large central focus was moving and creating that sensation." the African-American remarked smartly.

"Too many big words. Look, you made Cosmo pass out." Timmy grumbled and poked at the green squirrel's belly to get him to sit back up.

"Something that took up most of the focus of the room was moving, and because it moved it felt like everything else was moving with it, even though it was the only thing moving." A.J. tried again. He ducked a small fireball that flew over his head. "Hey!"

"Smaller words, pal, or the next one becomes a homing fireball."

"That wasn't nice, Sport." Wanda scolded her godchild and Timmy only huffed in response.

"It wasn't nice to keep talking about something that makes me want to puke. I'm trying to get my hands on an emblem and Crocker's old files and all anyone wants to blab about is that stupid jungle gym and that stupid fall." he grumbled.

"What I was trying to get across is that there was one big thing that kept moving around, but your brain didn't see it as moving because it thinks that something like that can't move." A.J. tried a third time, "That thing was the jungle gym itself. My theory is that the rebuilt jungle gym was moving on an axis of its own and because none of us are of the mind to believe that a big, two-ton structure of metal can move on its own, then we are forced to think that the area around it is moving. Even though it's not." He eyed the brunet warily. "Is that small enough?" he asked in suspicion.

"Are you barbecued now?"

"Fine. Based on that, I've entered the variables into my simulation to render scenarios that could occur if the jungle gym was capable of independent motion."

"That's it! Flagrare-!"

"Will you knock that off?!" the pink-haired fairy yelled, tossing her wand at her godchild's head, "Take this seriously! We don't have time for you to throw another tantrum over this!" She looked over at A.J. "Go ahead. What have you discovered so far?"

"Well, I've run a few simulations where I had the jungle gym be moved by various influences. Earthquakes, powerful gusts of wind... but none of them produced the right results." A.J. went on in a puzzled tone, "On top of that, I don't remember anything like that happening the day Timmy fell. So how could the jungle gym move without anyone seeing it or realizing it?"

The group studied the screen, thinking that over. It was a puzzle, and one that seemed so close to being solved, yet there was still a piece missing. Chester sighed and sat back against the tree trunk, annoyed.

"Man, just a little bit more info and we'd have this figured out!" he complained, "How do we get the jungle gym to spin without it being noticed?" A.J. lifted his head from the laptop and looked at him, confused.

"Spin?" he echoed dumbly.

"Yes, spin. I said the room felt like it was spinning, not shaking or rattling or anything." Timmy grumbled and twirled a finger in the air, "Spinning. Like a top. Like the jungle gym was a merry-go-round in slow motion." The super-genius tilted his head thoughtfully.

"Hadn't thought of that. It doesn't make sense, though. A jungle gym spinning like a merry-go-round? It's not built to move like that." he murmured in confusion, "It's scientifically impossible."

"You said that about Timmy's death and it happened anyway." Sanjay pointed out, "Input the variables! Let us test them and see if a spinning jungle gym is to blame!" A.J. sighed and rolled his eyes, then began tapping at the laptop again.

"Let's start with something slow. Say, a quarter-inch turn to the left every three seconds." he reported and shook his head, "This is insanity. Jungle gyms aren't designed to spin. They're landlocked, rigid constructs." Timmy sighed and rolled onto his back, gazing up at the clouds. It was insanity all right... insanity that these guys kept insisting on rewriting history. He sat up after a moment and looked around the school yard, checking to see where Remy could be. As usual, he sat at the Populars' table, looking smugly at him. Timmy blinked, puzzled. Was that guy actually making eye contact with him? What was up with that? And why was he smiling so hugely?

"A sample. He wanted a sample and ran off with strands of my hair." he mused and glanced over at the fairy couple, "Hey, guys. You don't think Remy was after a sample of my hair, do you? What would that give him?" Wanda and Cosmo looked up at him worriedly, clutching acorns in their little paws.

"A sample of hair? That's not good. Crocker's got a sample of Cosmo's hair and that's how he got the anti-magic units to lock onto him. They hunt for his DNA." Wanda told him, "If Remy's got a bit of your hair, he can use that same technology to find you anywhere you go!" She squeaked in fright, dropping the nut as her paws flew up to her face, eyes wide. "No! Your DNA! Dead or alive, your DNA is the same it's always been! If he gets it traced, he'll find out who you are!" she exclaimed in horror.

"Then I wish I had those strands of hair back!" Timmy blurted out, "We can't let him discover who I am! He'll tell the world and we'll be done for! You, me, Caleb and Danny!" The two fairies lifted their wands, then watched them fall limp in alarm.

"That's not a good sign." Cosmo remarked inanely, lowering his wand to study it, "I thought we had these fixed."

"The strands are either in a nullification zone or they're already being processed." Wanda muttered, "In any case, a wish can't touch them now that they're out of range of our magic." Timmy groaned despairingly.

"Ah, just my luck. All of this blows up because of...." he paused suddenly, blinking in realization, "Luck? Hey, that could work. If fairy magic can't reach the strands, could an anti-fairy's black magic work?" The fairy couple looked at each other, then gave him a wary expression.

"What are you thinking, Sport?" Wanda asked in a low tone, "You can't possibly be considering using bad luck to get rid of that DNA evidence." Timmy tapped at his teeth thoughtfully.

"You're right. I can't. I don't think there's a way for me to work out how it would be bad luck for me to destroy those strands so that an anti-fairy can grant it without breaking one of their own rules." he muttered and looked over at Remy again. "But if I got Remy to trigger the bad luck, then that would do it for sure." He glanced over at the group of teens staring at the screen of A.J.'s laptop, rolled his eyes and returned to his thoughts. "Okay, now to explain this to Anti-Cosmo, as he's the only guy free to cause bad luck. I wish I had a mirror and a rock." The fairies winced as they granted the wish. Placing the mirror on the grass, Timmy lifted the rock and dropped it onto the glass, shattering it within its frame.

The three of them waited for a moment, but no anti-poof appeared to signal the coming of the only free anti-fairy in the world. Timmy wished for a second mirror, placed it over the remnants of the first and dropped the rock on it again. Still, no response.

"This doesn't make sense. I'm triggering bad luck, but he's not showing up." he muttered. Wanda shrugged helplessly.

"Maybe it's because Anti-Cosmo made you immune to black magic as well. Looks like there's no way of contacting him. What a shame." she laughed forcefully, "We'll just have to find our own way of getting rid of that DNA."

"Weird." Timmy muttered and dug into his backpack for his cell phone, "Okay, I wish the shards of mirror were gone. Looks like I'll have to bug Caleb about this. He's not gonna be happy about it, though." He dialed the number for the android as the fairies whisked the broken mirrors away, then listened with disinterest while Caleb lectured him on interrupting important archiving. "Do it later. I need some help with something. Remy's run off with some strands of my hair and I think he's using it to trace my DNA for figuring out my identity. Can you do something to stop the process or destroy the results?"

"For a Hero, you need saving more than the people you're supposed to protect. I should have held you back another year for more training rather than let you run back to Dimmsdale on this suicide mission of yours." Caleb sighed harshly, "All right. Since we don't know exactly where your DNA is being processed, I'm going to have to carpet bomb the country with a wish of my own. It might take a while, so call me back in an hour or so. The Eternal Sword Pin takes up quite a bit of concentration to use." The android hung up immediately afterwards and Timmy sighed in relief. Caleb would take care of it; there was little he couldn't do when he put his ancient magic to work. Still, it would be nice if he could find a way to do things on his own, but magical alchemy didn't have that kind of power. At least, not as far as he knew.

There was a startled cry from the S-List and he looked over at them in concern. Had something happened?

"I don't believe it!" A.J. cried in shock, "It registered true! The scenario played out perfectly!" Chester clenched a fist, teeth ground together fiercely.

"I knew it! I knew there was no way he could have died just falling off that thing!" he exclaimed, "A.J.! You did it, Dude! You found out what caused his death!" He broke into a savage grin. "When we show this to the cops, they'll have to reopen the case and investigate it!" he cheered and looked over at Timmy, "Timothy! We've got it! The jungle gym spun two inches to the right and that did it! That's what made Timmy break his neck on it!"

"You're all crazy." the brunet returned hollowly, staring at the group. A.J. shook his head, frowning as he continued tapping at the keyboard.

"What's crazy is what the simulation is saying. There's no way the jungle gym could move two inches precisely in time to connect with Timmy on his way down as a natural occurrence." he remarked evenly, "An outside influence had to make the structure move in coordination with Timmy's fall in order to have him break his neck and die from it. This was not a random shift in the jungle gym's position." The group blinked at him, puzzled.

"What does that mean, exactly?" Trixie asked, confused by the words.

"Yeah, what she said!" Timmy growled, folding his arms over his chest, "What does that mean? Spill it, A.J., and in plain English for those of us who aren't super-geniuses!" The technician of the group rubbed his head with a small sigh, gazing somberly down at the screen of his laptop.

"Listen carefully, okay, 'cause this is deep and I really don't like thinking about it too much." he began and took a deep breath to calm himself before explaining, "The simulation says that the jungle gym needed to move two inches to the right in concert with Timmy's fall in order to have the bar be in position to connect with his neck and cause his death. That means that it was timed to move specifically to hit Timmy." A.J. looked up at the startled group with a sorrowful expression. "This wasn't an accident, guys." he finally summed up, "Somebody set this up to have Timmy die when he was pushed from the top of the jungle gym. Someone timed the fall and did something to the jungle gym so that it would be in position to hit him."

"You mean-?" Tootie whispered and squeaked in horror, hands flying up to cover her mouth. Her eyes went wide, face paling, as she turned quickly to stare at the brunet. "No!" Timmy knelt before the S-List, still vaguely puzzled. His expression began to change as realization began dawning on him, going from perplexed to stunned.

"How cruel...." Trixie mumbled tearfully, "No... it can't be...."

"Bastards...." Chester hissed and shut his eyes tightly, slamming his fist against the tree trunk as tears began running down his face, "Bastards! It wasn't an accident!"

"Chester! Wait!" Tootie blurted out in horror, holding out her hands to him, "Don't-!"

"It wasn't an accident!" the blonde yelled in a fury, "Timmy Turner was murdered four years ago and we lost all our hopes and dreams because of some yellow-bellied killer!" The young Goth gasped and whipped her head around to take in the brunet's reaction to the brutal news.

Cosmo and Wanda had stiffened, eyes wide as the words sank into them. Timmy had gone completely white, hands lifting shakily to his neck.

"N-n-nnn...." his voice was failing him. Wanda finally uttered a cry of agony, throwing herself to the grass and burying her face into her arms as she muffled her screams. The teens jumped in alarm as her husband matched her cry with one of his own, a shriek of rage that startled the S-List as well as made everyone on the school yard dive for the closest bit of cover they could find. It was all that was needed for the brunet to release his own scream, a howl of anguish and pain that filled the air and sent Team Turner scrambling for cover behind the oak tree, watching him with shock and alarm.

The screams finally died away as the students of Oberon High raced back into the building, more to find an escape from the wails than to continue classes. The S-List crawled back into place, trembling from fright, as they continued to keep their eyes on the brunet that had displayed so much emotion towards their discovery. He remained kneeling on the grass, clutching his arms tightly as they were crossed over himself. His face was hidden by the shadows cast from his hair as he hung his head, sobbing as he shook from the horrible realizations. Wanda continued her own weeping, face buried in her limbs as she curled up miserably, tail wrapping her body protectively. Cosmo sat away from them, eyes shut tightly as he sank his teeth into his arm to keep from screaming again. Someone debated telling him he'd started bleeding, then decided not to incur a random blast of magic.

"That was... wow...." Chester breathed in amazement, "He must have really cared a lot about Timmy to react like that!" Tootie sighed harshly and stood up, holding her fists at her sides as she took on a determined expression.

"That's not why he cried." she declared firmly, "If you can figure out what caused Timmy's death, then you can figure out why Timothy cried like that." With that, she strode towards the huddled brunet and wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "It's okay, Timmy." she whispered softly to him, "Go ahead and cry. We all have before, so it's only fair." He pulled away from her, climbing unsteadily to his feet as one hand instinctively reached for his neck, wrapping around it as a form of protection. He said nothing else, but turned and left the group, walking slowly away from them and off the campus with the fairies tagging after him.

"Where's he going?" A.J. asked in confusion, "Tootie, what did you mean by that?" The young Goth looked back at them with a scowl.

"You're the super-genius, A.J.! Figure it out! The connection between Timmy and Timothy! It's so obvious!" she shouted at them and ran off, "I'm going to make sure he's okay! Meet us at the cemetery when you get the idea!" Team Turner was left in a state of confusion. One mystery was solved, but they were given several more in its place. And the most worrying one of them was why their immortal leader had reacted like that.

"The connection between Timmy and Timothy...." Trixie mused softly, "What do we know about Timothy? About his life and death?"

"Not much. He doesn't talk about who he was when he was alive." Elmer returned, "And he doesn't explain anything about how he died."

"He has that same feeling as Timmy." Chester murmured strangely, "Whenever we hung out with Timmy, we had that feeling that things were gonna be okay in the end. That if we just hung on to happiness, things would be okay." He looked skyward. "And ever since we started hanging out with Timothy, we started getting that feeling again. That our dreams were still alive and that everything would be fine again."

"We know that he fell to his death, too. He told us on the phone." Trixie remarked, "So he died the same way Timmy did, sort of. Also, his records didn't get entered in online databases until August 20th, the same day Timmy's obituary ran in Dimmsdale. Remy himself said that his investigation into Timothy's past says that Timothy didn't exist until a few years ago."

"So? That doesn't mean anything... does it?" A.J. asked worriedly, "I mean, it's all just guessing, right?"

"There's something else." Trixie added with a slight frown, folding her arms over her chest, "Timothy told me a lot of times that he died in an accident and that I shouldn't bother with finding out his past. And did you see how he held his neck when he left? Like he was remembering an old injury... Timmy's neck broke and that's how he died."

"For a New York native, he knew quite a bit about Dimmsdale's streets and city layout." Sanjay added quietly and glanced over at the other boys, "You do not think that he is...?"

"Timothy's immune to fairy wishes, just like Timmy. And the Heart of Dimmsdale is immune to them, but that's just another name for Timmy. And the fairies say that Timothy is immune because Fairy World won't recognize him as alive when he shouldn't be, but they don't say why Timmy is immune." Elmer added in thoughtfully and blinked, "Wait a second. Isn't Timmy's full name Timothy Turner? It's on his tombstone, right?"

"Timothy Tiberius Turner, yeah. Two Timothys." A.J. agreed and blinked in surprise at what he had just said. "Two Timothys!"

"Who's got a picture of Timmy?" Chester demanded and Sanjay whipped out his wallet, flipping through it to pull out a photo.

"It is my best one, so do not get grime on it!" the Hindu warned as he handed it over. Chester held it out and the group all huddled around to study the color photo.

"Same hair, same eyes, and anyone notice his teeth are just a little too big whenever he's tapping on 'em? He does that when he's thinking about stuff too hard." the blonde asked as they peered at the image, "And he's been gung-ho on keeping us out of danger ever since we found out what he's been doing to help Dimmsdale. I think we all got had for the longest time."

"No way!" Trixie exclaimed as the group gasped in unison, "You mean to say that Timothy Neogene is actually Timmy Turner?! But, we were all at his funeral! We saw him get buried!"

"He didn't have his hat when he got buried, and he's buddy-buddy with Caleb, a robot. Caleb builds other robots to help him out, right?" Chester pointed out grimly, "So what are the odds that the kid Dimmsdale buried was actually a robot copy of Timmy?"

"But then why is he wearing black all the time, and why does he get mad about the hat?" Elmer asked, pointing at the pink cap on his head.

"Because he doesn't want to give himself away. We made it law here that no one can wear the pink shirt and pink hat combination that Timmy always did, and he wasn't going to risk getting recognized in that outfit." A.J. returned and headed for the backpack left forgotten on the grass, "We know that Timmy had two hats in his whole life. He gave one to Elmer, which he still has, and he kept the other one 'cause he always wore it." He opened the backpack and dug through it, searching among the bottles and gadgets and books. "An inner pocket?" A.J. questioned and unzipped it. He uttered a small gasp and looked up at this friends in amazement. "Here it is!" he exclaimed and pulled out the pink hat that should have been buried with the boy so long ago, "Timmy kept the other hat the whole time! This is it! Proof that Timothy is Timmy!"

"Agh! And we just told him to his face that he'd been murdered!" Chester cried in horror, "No wonder he flipped out!"

"Oh my gosh! I kissed Timmy Turner on the mouth?!" Trixie exclaimed suddenly, "Yaaii! I told him everything about how I felt! He saw me in my nightgown!" Her face turned red as she screamed in embarrassment. "Now he thinks I'm a total freeeaaak!"

"What is she talking about?" Sanjay asked suspiciously, glaring at the raven-haired Popular as she shook her fists excitedly, "What does she mean by a kiss?! You there! Miss Popular! What kiss are you speaking of?!"

"Never mind that! Let's go! We gotta make sure Timmy's okay!" Chester yelled, racing for the path that the brunet had taken, "The last thing we need is for him to go nuclear on a Dark Spire all by himself 'cause he's gone crazy in the head!" Snatching up the backpack and hat, the remainder of the team ran after him, desperate to catch up with their friends.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Dimmsdale Cemetery~

Tootie and Romi stood by silently as they watched Timmy look down at his own grave, Cosmo and Wanda floating by him with tired expressions. None of them had spoken, not since they all shrieked their sorrows and outrage at Oberon. Tootie couldn't blame them; this was Dimmsdale, the self-proclaimed city of idiots. Though no one there could be counted on to get the big picture right away, it was well-known that the people were generally good-natured, with the worst crimes they ever dealt with being counterfeiting and burglaries. The concept of murder never entered their minds, and murder of a child was inconceivable to them.

Especially if that child was the Heart of Dimmsdale.

It was so bizarre, it bordered unnatural. Who could do such a thing? Who would be so cruel and evil as to willingly take the life of someone the city needed so much to survive?

"Why?" Timmy finally whispered softly and Tootie blinked up at him, startled that he spoke, "I was just an average kid that no one understood. Why did I deserve to be...?" He stopped, unable to bring himself to say the word. It was taboo in his mind; he'd never been exposed to something like that, so of course he'd cringe away from the idea of life being taken away. Even his spells, even in his darkest moments, he'd never taken someone's life. That was what kept him from obliterating Remy at the last Spire, that hatred of taking life away from others. It was too precious, something he didn't learn until it was too late for himself.

"We can find out. We'll find out who did it and make 'em pay." Tootie told him, "I'll wish the guy who did it to Mars!"

"Fairy magic can't be used to bring harm to a person." Romi scolded her, "It's against Da Rules!"

"So what about me makes it hard for people to decide whether they want me around or not?" Timmy asked with a sigh, "If people hated me enough to want me gone, they could have just said so. I would have wished myself to some other place." He glared at the small tombstone. "They didn't have to kill me to get rid of me!" he growled, "I would have left on my own! I did it before; I could have done it again!"

"It's not you, Timmy! I know it isn't!" Tootie blurted out, "You're the nicest, sweetest guy in Dimmsdale! No one could hate you enough to do that to you!" The brunet huffed disdainfully.

"I know of at least two people that would love to take responsibility for this." he shot back, folding his arms over his chest, "Well, now I know that I really wasn't wanted here when I was alive. I'm only good to this city as a dead kid." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Once the rest of the Spires have fallen, I'm going back to New York. Thanks to A.J. and the Others, I have the proof that I don't belong here."

"But this is your home! Here, where you were born!" Tootie exclaimed.

"Here, where I was murdered?! Fat chance. I wanted to be home, but it's obvious I don't have one here anymore." the brunet grumbled and looked over at his fairy godparents, "Cosmo, Wanda, what are the chances of us starting fresh in New York once this is done with?"

"Pretty good." Wanda replied distractedly, "You're already established there as Timothy Neogene and Caleb's got several condos we can pick from as a new home."

"We can also just go back to Fairy World." Cosmo muttered, "None of us belong here." Wanda seemed to snap back to herself and frowned at her husband.

"We're banished, remember? That means we can't go to Fairy World!" she told him sternly. The green-haired fairy shook his head.

"I can take a deal for us." he returned, "We got a letter that says we can all go live in Fairy World again if I take a deal." He smiled slightly. "That'll be fun. A house in Fairy World for you and Timmy." Wanda gave him a suspicious look and he shrugged. "All I have to do is go back to the Fairy Army. It won't be so bad." he added and yelped painfully as his wife slapped him in the back of the head.

"No way! Not even for a chance to go back there with Timmy!" she snapped at him, "You idiot, you know they've been wanting to get their hands on you for ages! Don't give them what they want!"

"Owwie! I thought it would be fun for us!" Cosmo whimpered, rubbing his head, "And I wanted to eat at the Golden Crown again!" Timmy sighed and shook his head.

"Caleb tried to petition for you guys to be able to go back, too, and got the same deal. I think we should count out Fairy World and Dimmsdale both as places to live." he told the couple and looked down at the grave again, "Ingrates."

Tootie sighed helplessly, shaking her head, then blinked as she heard the voices of the Others calling out to them. She turned to watch them run up to the grave, puzzled by their excitement. Had they taken her advice and put their heads together to discover Timmy's secret? Timmy himself followed her gaze, head tilted in confusion as the group of teens ran straight for him.

"What in the world-?" he managed to get out before being tackled by Chester and A.J. The rest of the team piled on happily, chattering as they crushed him with hugs. "Will you get off of me?! What's going on?!" the brunet yelled out, "Come on! I barely got a full heal after that fight at the office building!"

"Dude! It's you!" Chester cheered, digging his knuckles into Timmy's head and mussing up his hair, "You had us all going for months, man! I wasn't sure whether to beat the crap outta ya for having us believe you were gone for all those years, or just hug ya and be glad you're still walking the planet! Guess which one I went for!"

"Ow, ow, ow!" Timmy yelped between hugs and digs, "Can you pick one that's less painful?! And what are you talking about?!"

"Three cheers for the return of the Heart of Dimmsdale!" Sanjay whooped, waving his hands in the air excitedly. Elmer pulled the pink hat from his head and shoved it into his backpack with relief.

"Now I don't have to be so stressed out anymore." he sighed happily.

"You better explain to me why you didn't want me finding out how you died, Timmy." A.J. berated the brunet, "'Cause I don't want to have been awake for so many nights just for some empty answer! I've got lots of questions for you later, so be prepared for some heavy-duty interrogation!" Timmy stared at the group in shock, then quickly tore himself from them, stumbling back towards the grave.

"What?! You know who I am?! Who told you?!" he demanded in a mix of anger and disbelief.

"Nobody, Dude. We just put together a whole lotta puzzle pieces we didn't know we had and figured it out." Chester returned and grinned at him, "It's good to have you back, Timmy. You have no idea how much we missed you!"

"I have a pretty good one." the brunet growled back and pointed at the small tombstone, "And from the looks of things, somebody didn't miss me at all! How else did I wind up getting carried off by the Grim Reaper?!"

"Take it easy, Timmy; we just want to help you." Trixie told him, a worried expression on her face, "We're your friends, remember? I mean, I know I wasn't much of a friend to you before but...."

"But you want to be now that I've got power I didn't have as a living human being, right?" Timmy snapped angrily at her and slashed at the air with one arm, filling the space with mana orbs of different colors, "Now that I've got this ability to call up magic, I'm suddenly the coolest guy around, right? I should have known; I was useless to you all alive, but dead, I'm the greatest thing ever!"

"This wasn't the reunion I had in mind." Tootie sighed and the brunet turned on her next.

"You set this up, didn't you?! Tootie, I told you over and over that I can't have anyone else know who I am! It's dangerous!" he yelled at her and threw up his hands in exasperation, "This is all just stupid! Do you all have any idea what could happen to me and Caleb and Danny if anyone else found out about me? And the fairies! They'll all get pulled back to Fairy World and any chance I had at doing good for the world gets ruined!" He sighed harshly and pulled his hand down over his face. "Great. Just great. Now I'm going to have to wipe your memories and get back on my original path." he grumbled, "Cosmo, Wanda! I wish-!" Chester held out his hands for peace, waving them excitedly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a second there, guy!" he blurted and held out his arms to the S-List, "What's wrong with letting us know who you are? We've been buds forever, Timmy; don't you trust us to keep your secret safe?" The blonde looked faintly hurt. "Did dying really change you that much? I mean, back at the Tower, when you threatened Sanjay, and at the Dark Spire, when you almost blew away Remy 'cause of me... the Timmy we all knew wouldn't have done that."

"The Timmy you knew was freaking murdered, remember?!" the brunet shrieked back and flopped down onto the grass, folding his arms over his chest in a huff, "You don't get it at all! No one escapes Death unchanged! When Danny Phantom stole my soul away from Death and brought me back to life with it, it changed who I was, what I was! There's no going back for me ever!"

The group fell silent then, no one sure of what else to say. The fairy couple floated by him, waiting to hear if he was going to finish the wish or not. After a few minutes, the other teenagers all sat down in a small cluster near the brunet, gazing up at the clouds overhead. Trixie murmured to her pendant and Apollo poofed free, taking up a place on the grass by her as he began cleaning off his little sword. Tootie and Romi took up places on the ground as well, toying with blades of grass as though waiting for something to happen. Timmy watched them all, puzzled. Finally, he sighed in defeat and shook his head.

"What do you want from me?" he asked quietly.

"Nothing really. Just let us be friends again and help you free the city. That's what you came back here for, right?" Chester asked with a shrug. "We all want our hopes and dreams to come back, so this is the best way to do it."

"I'd like to ask forgiveness for all the stuff I did and didn't do when we were little." Trixie added in hesitantly, "I was the reason why you climbed the jungle gym, right? If it hadn't been for me, you would have been all right."

"Stop that. Maybe you were the reason for it back then." Timmy muttered, "That doesn't mean you have that same power over me now. You don't listen to what I say, so here we are now." He gave her a stern look. "Stop blaming yourself. I chose to climb it myself. It doesn't matter why I did it anymore."

"Will we keep our memories?" Sanjay asked. Timmy winced and sighed.

"Part of me says to erase them to keep myself safe; me and Cosmo and Wanda, and Caleb and Danny. But... part of me doesn't want to. Part of me wants you to know, because I still want to be normal." he murmured, "I still want to be able to go back to being Timmy Turner after all this, but I'm learning that I can't do that. But it would still be nice to have part of my past with me." He smiled sadly. "So I guess, yeah. You can keep them. We really can be Team Turner now." he finally decided.

"Will you take back the hat, Timmy, sir?" Elmer pleaded and the brunet laughed.

"No way! You keep that one, I already have my own!" he returned and sighed happily, "At least around you guys I can finally go back to my old clothes. Dressing up in black all the time gets on my nerves; it makes me feel weird."

"How about solving the mystery of how you got killed and who would want you dead?" A.J. asked seriously. The brunet shrugged at that.

"I'd like to know that myself. This is Dimmsdale; murders don't happen in Dimmsdale. That's something that goes on everywhere else. We're a special city." he remarked, "I'll leave that up to you 'cause, obviously, I don't know anything about what happened here after I died and before I was resurrected. You put the clues together, Sherlock."

"And the Spires?" Tootie pitched in and Timmy jumped up.

"Oh, yeah! I forgot to tell you guys that Sam's working on an emblem for us! Once it comes in, we'll declare it as the official insignia for the Heart of Dimmsdale!" he exclaimed brightly, "That will put it in Da Rules as having immunity against fairy wishes! Then we'll just attach the emblem to our magitech armor and attack the next Spire! Remy won't be able to do a thing to you guys while you're wearing them!"

"Our own fairies won't be able to help us either." Tootie pointed out dryly.

"Not directly at least. But I can have Cosmo and Wanda grant wishes for you if you need direct help. Otherwise, rely on your own strength and make wishes with one degree of separation." he returned and grinned. "Well, Team Turner, you know who I am and what's at stake! Are you still up for wrecking Remy's Dark Spires and stopping Crocker from stealing fairies?!" The group jumped up with him, fists thrust into the air.

"Yeah!"