Author's Notes:

Dorks playing tag. ^.^

"Right showdown. Sorry." The male halfa said correcting himself.

"We gonna participate too?" the huntress asked.

"Sure, if you want to." Alter replied

"So what's the objective of the game this time?" Tucker questioned.

"Um... oh I got it. To protect the cattle." The ghost cowboy said.

"Well how do you play?" Sam asked.

"You guys will be the cattle and Danny has to protect you guys from me. If you get touched with the poker you're out."

"Poker? Hell no Peter Pan." Valerie protested.

"Not a real poker!" Youngblood made a simple bunt stick with ectoplasm. "Poker." He bopped the huntress on the nose, laughing.

"Sounds fun!" Dani beamed going ghost and sighing in relief. "If I hadn't gone ghost soon I would have gone nuts."

"Why?" the techno geek questioned laughing.

"Imagine going a day without your PDA." The ghost girl deadpanned.

Tucker let out a gasp of horror. "You poor girl! I had no idea that it was so terrible!" he said sounding a hundred percent serious.

Dani laughed. "Practically torture."

"We can play on the roof." Youngblood said and phased through the roof with Alter, followed by the two halfas.

A few minutes later the others joined them, since they had to take the stairs. "Time to play!" Youngblood announced with a wave of his hand. A fence appeared around the perimeter of the emergency op center's roof as did cow ears on the heads of Danny's friends and sister. "Don't worry; they'll come off when the game is over." The cowboy reassured.

"I feel stupid," The goth stated. "I'm dressed like something I've sworn not to eat."

"At least he didn't put tails too." Tucker said to her.

"Don't tempt me." Youngblood warned laughing.

"Aw! You look so cute!" Dani told her girlfriend as she shook her own ears around. Meanwhile her brother was dying of laughter.

"I'll give you guys ten seconds to spread out." The cowboy announced from atop of his horse.

The friends immediately scrambled, about seven seconds later they heard Western movie style music.

"Really Tucker?" The male halfa accused laughing.

"Just setting the mood." The techno geek said defending his PDA and himself.

"Time's up." Alter said before taking off.

They went for Valerie first who just rolled to the side, avoiding the poker (stick). They rounded the corner going after Dani next who put up her hands as if she were going to make a shield, only to find that she couldn't. Her brother put a quick shield around her which deflected the poker. The horse and cowboy raced past her and the shield dispersed after about ten seconds.

"What the hell!?" the ghost girl yelled incredulous.

Youngblood pulled at Alter's reins, stopping. "I said that Danny had to protect you guys, and it wouldn't be exactly fair if he could make a long lasting shield around you all so the headbands make the shield last less time. And it also cancels out your ability to make a shield Dani-ellie." Youngblood had always pronounced her name like that, despite numerous corrections.

"That does sound sorta fair." Danny agreed.

"Great, now time in!" he went after Tucker, neither the geek nor the halfa had time to react and the cowboy tapped him on the head. "You're out!" he said and the cow ears disappeared.

"Aw man! No fair!" he pouted, walked over to the corner of the roof, sat down and went to lean his back against the fence; he went through it. "Wait what!?" he yelled as his arms windmilled trying to stabilize himself.

Danny quickly flew over and stabilized his friend. "Thanks," Tucker said putting a hand over his heart. "I almost had a heart attack."

"Sorry sorry!" Youngblood said, apologizing quickly.

"Isn't the fence to you know, keep people from falling off!?" Sam yelled.

"I didn't think you guys would actually lean on it! I can't stretch my powers much okay? I can either focus on making the surroundings or on my ectoplasm. I'm not like Danny who can do more than one thing at once. The fence was just supposed to be visually reassuring."

"Okay little man, can you explain that one more time please? In a way that can be understood." The huntress said.

"Okay basically if I made the fence solid I wouldn't have been able to make this stupid stick. That pirate ship that I had was the most that I could do with my powers, which was one of the reasons why I changed to cowboy because the ship strained my powers too much. And when I had the ship I couldn't shoot ectoplasm much or anything. So it's like I can choose to make my imagination solid or not, but to a certain limit." Youngblood explained.

"So your core is based on illusions." The male halfa said.

The cowboy sighed, glad that someone had understood what he had been trying to say and nodded. "Bingo. I'm really sorry Tucker."

"No harm done." The geek said waving it off.

"Yeah except for you nearly falling off of a roof." Sam said.

"What the hell is a core?" Dani asked confused.

"Cores determine a ghost's powers; weak cores can only do the basic powers like floating and stuff and their usually based off of some kind of element. You have an ice core, so do I, Ember has two cores fire and music and Youngblood has an illusion core." Danny explained.

"Well when did you get so smart about cores?" his sister teased laughing.

"Clockwork explained it, I visited him after you got your ice powers and asked him what core meant, he gave me the whole 101 on the subject." The male halfa lied.

"I get it if you don't want to play anymore." Youngblood said apologetically.

"No, I got an idea." Danny said and made a dome-like shield around the roof. "You guys good with that?"

"Yeah definitely. Hey Sam, I bet that I could stay in the game longer than you." Val challenged.

"Oh yeah? Count me in!" Sam said.

"Good luck Sam!" Tucker called to his girlfriend from the sideline.

They resumed the game while Tucker continued to play western style music from his PDA. It was a mess of running around, dodging and ghost shields, like a game of tag on steroids. Every so often the goth would accuse the huntress of cheating since she was working together with her girlfriend. This would cause Valerie to call her a sore loser even though Sam was still in the game. It was a good strategy when you thought about it. The game ended well over an hour later when the halfa was too tired to make any more shields and his friends too tired to run.

"Okay, that's it I'm done." The goth panted swea-simmering.

"Ditto." The ghost girl said holding up a hand in agreement, tiredly.

Valerie simply lied down on the floor, sprawled out dramatically, closed her eyes and played dead.

"Drama queen." Dani said laughing breathlessly.

"I can't answer, I'm dead." Valerie stated opening one eye. "Mouth to mouth might save me though."

The ghost girl turned a bit pink. "Dork." She muttered.

"But I'm your dork." She replied pouting/whining.

"Don't you need to get home?" Dany asked the huntress as he dropped the shield around the roof and turned human.

"Maybe." She said stretching out the word.

"Go on, shoo." He said making motions with his hand.

"Meanie," she huffed getting up. "See you at school tomorrow. Bye Youngblood, Alter."

"Oh wait! One more thing, it'll be real quick!" the cowboy pleaded.

Author's Notes:

Big/not big plot twist (or surprise) whatever you wanna call it, next chapter.
I know that the chapters lately have been slow but don't worry, shit gets dramatic (/embarrassing) soon! Bare with me here! Please! ;-;