Chapter 7 - Dark Information

7


Wanda waited anxiously as Timmy raced out of Vicky's house towards her and Cosmo. She held her wand out and poofed the boy's backpack onto the teen, then looked towards her husband as she readied another burst of magic.

"Cosmo! Timmy's on his way! Quick! Get into his backpack!" she shouted at him. The green-haired fairy was looking though Tootie's window again, a strangely thoughtful expression on his face.

"I guessed right." he muttered, "She definitely would have gotten a fairy godparent after that."

"Cosmo!" Wanda barked at him and he lifted his wand, poofing into the teen's pack as he raced by them with his former babysitter in hot pursuit, still swinging her battle axe around. She followed after him, poking her head slightly out from under the flap to see what was going on.

"I can't wish us home, guys, so I'll have to make do with running!" Timmy huffed as he pulled away from the tiring woman behind him. Wanda blinked and allowed herself a small grin; those heels were meant for walking, not running. There was a sudden shift in scenery as Timmy darted into a nearby alley to rest. "Wanda... are there... any anti-magic devices... here?" he panted and she flew out of the bag with Cosmo, holding out her wand for the test. Firing a harmless burst of magic into the air, the group waited tensely for an ambush. No reaction.

"Danny Phantom must have cleared this area already. It was part of the first neighborhood sweep, right?" she remarked, floating down near him as Timmy leaned back against the wall of the building and tried to calm his breathing. He shot her a glare.

"Yeah, well, how'd he miss the one in Vicky's house?!" he growled and dug through his backpack, tossing out broken gadgets and pulling his pink hat free from the inner pocket.

"That one was recent." Cosmo muttered, poking at the bandages wrapping his left arm, "The safe zone Danny Phantom cleared is being taken over again."

"Darn it! You mean those two months we spent here spreading out the gaps in the anti-magic field meant nothing?!" the teen fumed and pulled his hat forcefully onto his head, an angry huff escaping him. Wanda stared at her husband in alarm. That sounded far too much like Anti-Cosmo for her liking. She frowned as the green-haired fairy looked up at them from his poking.

"We were doing what now?" he asked, his lost expression bringing Wanda a bit of relief. Ever since that day four years ago, when Timmy fell from the jungle gym, Cosmo had been getting strange moments of clarity that were getting more frequent and lasting longer as the days went on. The bursts of insight and intelligence worried her at times.

"Not nothing, Timmy! You freed a large section of the neighborhoods on top of what Danny cleared, and you're very close to liberating the entire industrial sector of Dimmsdale!" Wanda tried to reassure her godchild as he stood there and sulked silently, "You're taking to this hero business like a natural! After all, you stood by the Crimson Chin as Cleft the Boy Chin Wonder so many times; it's not like we don't know how to save a city!"

"It doesn't count if all I'm doing is delaying the inevitable!" the teen snapped at her angrily and threw himself back against the wall in frustration, gesturing furiously as he continued venting, "How does Cousin Danny do this?! He puts the ghosts in the Ghost Zone but they come right back out, like, a week later! I wreck a dozen anti-magic traps, and two dozen more take its place everywhere else!" He scowled at the ground and shook his head. "I'm still too weak to keep this up, but if I stop for too long then the whole city will be swallowed by anti-magic!"

Wanda winced as her godchild suddenly turned and slammed a fist against the building in a burst of rage. This wasn't good. Timmy had always been a cheerful, optimistic kid, but ever since that day and learning what was happening to his hometown, he'd become more quick to anger. She raised her wand and poofed in a magical meter, then aimed the device at the boy. Once it beeped to signal the end of its scan, she studied it carefully.

"According to this Light and Dark Meter, Timmy's Light is being overrun by Dark!" she told her husband in alarm. Cosmo only gave her a flat glare, folding his arms over his chest.

"Well, you didn't expect him to stay happy-go-lucky after all that craziness, did you?" he asked her bluntly, "Both Caleb and Danny Phantom warned us that no one escaped Death unchanged." Wanda glared at him. That was getting annoying. She tapped him forcefully on the chest with the meter.

"That's enough smarty-pants talk out of you! Don't make me zap you another zipper for a mouth!" she growled and blinked as the meter beeped a second time. Wanda pulled the meter back in surprise and studied the image of Cosmo that had replaced Timmy's image. She looked up at her husband after a few minutes, a frightened look on her face. "Cosmo, why does the Light and Dark Meter say you have more Dark than Light right now?" she asked and the fairy only gave her a small grin before flying down to sit on their godchild's shoulder. The boy looked at him in surprise, then up at Wanda, waiting for an explanation.

"What are you guys doing?" he asked, his previous anger spent and replaced with concern for his godparents. He glanced aside and touched fingers to the bandages on the green-haired fairy's arm, "Cosmo, are you doing okay? Most of the traps are set to your DNA, so they tend to be a little harsher on you."

"I'm fine!" Cosmo cheered and held out the Reverse Doll, "Pete says he had a booboo, but you can make it all better with pizza!" Wanda stared at him, then aimed the device at her husband once more. This time, Cosmo was purely Light again. What was going on?

"Well, we're safe for now, so I wish we were home." the boy remarked and the fairy couple poofed the group back to the house.

~*~*~*~*~*

Back at the house, Wanda continued to stare at both Timmy and Cosmo. Something was causing darkness in the both of them. She could understand it coming from Timmy; he was only human, so to speak, and humanity had a tendency to dip into darkness at random times, and no one escaped Death unchanged, so that might also be a factor. On top of that, the poor boy was letting the frustration of fighting a losing battle get to him. So, yes, Timmy's darkness was accountable that way. But, what was causing the darkness in Cosmo?

"Yeah, one large pizza, sausage and pepperoni, one dessert pizza, low-fat... and you guys still do those cinnamon sticks?" Timmy remarked idly, ordering over the phone as Cosmo sat on the couch, polishing his pet nickel, Philip, "Great! Get me one of those, too. My address? Sure, it's...." Wanda looked between the two of them worriedly. She couldn't help it. No matter how hard she tried to put it out of her mind, it still came back to worry her. Timmy's darkness wavered back and forth depending on his mood and current magical strength, both of which were at an all time low right now. Wanda wasn't sure exactly how mana-based magic worked, but she knew from watching her godchild that it took time to recover from using a lot of spells, especially high-level ones. The more badly depleted Timmy was of mana, the more testy he got. This was human nature.

But Cosmo was a fairy, and a fairy godparent above that. There shouldn't be any darkness in him! That was the role of the Anti-Fairies. Besides, he was an idiot and that idiocy just about guaranteed his purity and innocence. Light would shine brightly from him.

Wanda redirected her gaze to their godchild, watching as he sifted through his wallet for the amount of money he would need to pay for the pizzas. Timmy Turner had been innocent and naïve as well, and his light shone brightly with each good deed he did, whether he wanted to have done that deed or not. But one week in Death's grip had done something to darken his spirit, and it progressively went downhill as time marched on. So if it was possible to corrupt Timmy's spirit, was it also possible to corrupt Cosmo?

"Pizza should be here in about a half hour. Saves us all from having to cook dinner." Timmy remarked and looked out the window at the town, "The guy on the phone sounded so sad. Did my death really do this to Dimmsdale? It's not just random babble from people who can't let go of the past?"

"Well, it wasn't Wanda's cooking that did it! I ate it all up and won the Fart Contest! Whoo-hoo!" Cosmo cheered and fell over in laughter, clutching both Philip and Pete tightly. Wanda debated feeling relieved that he sounded like himself again, or beating him over the head with Timmy's cordless phone for being an insensitive idiot again.

Relief won and she fluttered over to sit on the windowsill with the teen, gazing out at the skyline of Dimmsdale in the light of the moon. She sighed after a moment and looked up at her godchild, who gave her a vaguely tired smile before turning his pensive gaze on the city.

"Aw, come on, Timmy! Make a wish! That should cheer you up!" Wanda exclaimed brightly, a hopeful expression on her face. Timmy blinked at her in surprise, then lifted his gaze thoughtfully.

"A wish, huh? Hmm. How about... I wish I had a map that would show me the status of magic and anti-magic zones at all times so I can keep track of them!" he declared with a grin.

"Low-tech or high-tech?" Cosmo muttered from the couch, "Be specific." Wanda shot him a look as the young immortal rubbed his head.

"Hmm. Make it like a computerized armband so I don't lose it anywhere." he amended and the fairy couple lifted their wands. In a burst of pink and green smoke, a white armband appeared on the teen's right arm. "Cool! White metal! I'm like a spy or something!" Timmy laughed, tapping at the keys embedded in the band, "Thanks, guys! I wonder if I can download mp3s with this...."

A map was projected into the air on a virtual screen by the armband after he tapped out an initializing sequence by accident. Wanda smacked the back of his hand with the star of her wand to get him to stop, then began explaining the functions of his new 'toy'.

"This is the Adventurer's Map 3000, the latest in portable magic navigation and tracking technology!" she told him proudly, "It can update itself via the Fairy World Wide Web and the human world's Internet using satellite signals, is highly accurate for a distance of a hundred and fifty miles, and comes with a global positioning system built right in so we never lose track of you and you can't lose us!" She tapped the star of her wand. "Our homing devices are our wands, so you can look us up by inputting our names into the band." she added as Timmy continued to tap at the keys, experimenting with various settings until he stopped suddenly, a puzzled frown on his face.

"That's strange." he murmured and Wanda halted her explanations to blink at him. He pointed at the map. "According to this, roughly eighty-five percent of Dimmsdale is under the effect of the anti-magic barrier." Wanda and Cosmo flew up to study the digital map with its sections of gold and gray painted on the city.

"Gray is an icky color." Cosmo remarked and tilted his head, green eyes taking in the map, "That's a big patch of gold." Timmy nodded and pointed at the patch.

"This is the area Cousin Danny cleared before we moved back." he told the couple and moved his finger to another patch, "And this is the industrial district we've been working on for two months." Wanda nodded in agreement, then blinked in surprise.

"But there are three patches of gold! A part of Dimmsdale is still receptive to magic!" she cried in disbelief. This was insane! Caleb had said that all of Dimmsdale was under lockdown against magic, and the odds of the ancient android being wrong were very slim. Unless....

"He didn't check it all. That sector is deeper in Dimmsdale than Caleb's cameras could reach." Wanda realized, "But if we didn't clear out that section of the city, who did?" Timmy frowned at the virtual map again.

"I don't like this. There's something more going on here than just Crocker setting out traps to capture fairies for his crazy world-conquest schemes." he grumbled and pressed a key to shut off the map. He looked towards the window and brightened. "Hey! All right, pizza's here!" he cheered.

"I smell something fishy!" Wanda declared as Timmy hurried to beat the delivery boy to the door, "Why would Crocker ignore that one sector of Dimmsdale? I thought he'd cover the whole city in fairy traps!"

"It was located in the upper-class neighborhood." Cosmo murmured almost coldly, floating behind the pink-haired fairy. She froze at the sound of his voice, tensing as his breath seemed to tickle her neck, "Close range sensors failed to detect it. Doesn't Caleb have access to long range sensors? Like, from a satellite?"

"Cosmo?!" Wanda exclaimed, spinning around to stare at her husband in shock. It was happening again! Cosmo only pressed a hand to his temple, wincing as he fluttered in the air. He shook his head with a soft groan, then blinked at Wanda as though just realizing she was there.

"Huh? Where's the pizza? I want low-fat pie!" he cried and flew off in innocent laughter. Wanda only watched him zip away, completely baffled.

What was going on?!

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